Product People » Episodeshttp://productpeople.tv
A podcast focused on great products and the people who make themSat, 03 Jan 2015 23:54:24 +0000en-UShourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=4.0.1A podcast focused on great products and the people who make themJustin JacksonnoA podcast focused on great products and the people who make themproduct,lean,startup,business,design,development,saas,product people,mvp,startups,product managementProduct People » Episodeshttp://productpeople.tv/files/2013/06/product-people-podcast-300.jpghttp://productpeople.tv/category/episodes/
TV-GBC, CanadaWeeklyEP71: Des Traynor on the forgotten job of every SaaS producthttp://productpeople.tv/2014/12/11/ep71-des-traynor-on-the-forgotten-job-of-every-saas-product/
http://productpeople.tv/2014/12/11/ep71-des-traynor-on-the-forgotten-job-of-every-saas-product/#commentsFri, 12 Dec 2014 00:23:47 +0000http://productpeople.tv/?p=336Des Traynor is one of my favorite writers and speakers on the topic of SaaS businesses, and jobs-to-be-done.

Notable quotes

“Customer service is the new competitive edge. Everyone has SaaS businesses. We’re all using the same frameworks, copying the same design techniques. Most software being produced today is infinitely better than it was years ago. The competitive edge isn’t going to be who has the better bevel. I actually think it will move to things like: ‘Who has a better relationship with the customer?’” – Des Traynor

“There’s a ton of project management software. It’s hard to compete on features. But if you ask: ‘How do I make people really great at managing projects?’ The answers come to you a lot quicker.” – Des Traynor

“It’s the forgotten job of every single SaaS product. ‘Ok, you’ve sold me. Now help me sell it to the rest of the team.’ I can eat the $29, but getting me to spend my own social currency… that’s a big ask.” – Des Traynor

“The job of every dashboard and report is to get someone promoted” – Des Traynor

]]>http://productpeople.tv/2014/12/11/ep71-des-traynor-on-the-forgotten-job-of-every-saas-product/feed/0jobs,jtbd,onboarding,saas,salesDes Traynor is one of my favorite writers and speakers on the topic of SaaS businesses, and jobs-to-be-done. Notable quotes “I think not talking to your customers was always a pretty pathological thing to do” - Des Traynor - Des Traynor is one of my favorite writers and speakers on the topic of SaaS businesses, and jobs-to-be-done.
Notable quotes
“I think not talking to your customers was always a pretty pathological thing to do” - Des Traynor
“Customer service is the new competitive edge. Everyone has SaaS businesses. We’re all using the same frameworks, copying the same design techniques. Most software being produced today is infinitely better than it was years ago. The competitive edge isn’t going to be who has the better bevel. I actually think it will move to things like: 'Who has a better relationship with the customer?'” - Des Traynor
“There’s a ton of project management software. It’s hard to compete on features. But if you ask: ‘How do I make people really great at managing projects?’ The answers come to you a lot quicker.” - Des Traynor
“It’s the forgotten job of every single SaaS product. ‘Ok, you’ve sold me. Now help me sell it to the rest of the team.’ I can eat the $29, but getting me to spend my own social currency… that’s a big ask.” - Des Traynor
“The job of every dashboard and report is to get someone promoted” - Des Traynor
Show notes
Intercom
Inside Intercom Blog
Des on Twitter
Note from Justin
This interview is a smaller segment of a full-interview with Des, available on Product People Club. Go to productpeople.club, and sign up for the waiting list. Screenshots are up now!
Want to help the show? If you could go to iTunes leave a nice review that would be superb. Also: if you're listening on Stitcher, please leave a review on there!
Cheers,
Justin Jackson
@mijustin
Music: Lethal Force by Striker, visit them at striker-metal.comJustin Jacksonno45:53EP70: Samuel Hulick talks about building Useronboardhttp://productpeople.tv/2014/11/06/ep70-samuel/
http://productpeople.tv/2014/11/06/ep70-samuel/#commentsFri, 07 Nov 2014 01:12:02 +0000http://productpeople.tv/?p=332Samuel has become the internet’s authority on user onboarding. In this personal and open interview, Samuel talks about how he was able to discover his niche, build an audience, and launch his first product. He also talks about what to do after a dissapointing launch.

Near the end of this interview, Samuel and Justin get passionate about the idea of greeting our product users like human beings: “Hello, welcome! We’re glad you’re here; we’ve been waiting for you.”

]]>http://productpeople.tv/2014/11/06/ep70-samuel/feed/0onboarding,ui,uxSamuel has become the internet's authority on user onboarding. In this personal and open interview, Samuel talks about how he was able to discover his niche, build an audience, and launch his first product.Samuel has become the internet's authority on user onboarding. In this personal and open interview, Samuel talks about how he was able to discover his niche, build an audience, and launch his first product. He also talks about what to do after a dissapointing launch.
Near the end of this interview, Samuel and Justin get passionate about the idea of greeting our product users like human beings: "Hello, welcome! We're glad you're here; we've been waiting for you."
Show notes
Useronboard.com
@samuelhulick
Samuel's onboarding book
crazyegg.com
Super Mario user onboarding
Chase Reeve's interview with the restauranteur
Note from Justin
This interview is a smaller segment of a full-interview with Samuel, available on Product People Club. Go to productpeople.club, and sign up for the waiting list. Screenshots are up now!
Want to help the show? If you could go to iTunes leave a nice review that would be superb. Also: if you're listening on Stitcher, please leave a review on there!
Cheers,
Justin Jackson
@mijustin
Music: Lethal Force by Striker, visit them at striker-metal.comJustin Jacksonno1:07:31EP69: Nir Eyal on how to build habit forming productshttp://productpeople.tv/2014/10/30/ep69-nir-eyal/
http://productpeople.tv/2014/10/30/ep69-nir-eyal/#commentsFri, 31 Oct 2014 04:36:32 +0000http://productpeople.tv/?p=329In June of 2013, I was introduced to Nir Eyal through Ryan Hoover. Nir had been blogging a lot about psychology and analyzing what makes a highly engaging product. Nir eventually published a book on that topic: Hooked – How to Build Habit-Forming Products. Hooked is a guide to building habit-forming technology, written for product managers, designers, marketers, and startup founders.

In this episode we get into how you can design your products, especially the initial experience, to create traction. We also get into my addiction to iTunes.

]]>http://productpeople.tv/2014/10/30/ep69-nir-eyal/feed/1habits,hookedIn June of 2013, I was introduced to Nir Eyal through Ryan Hoover. Nir had been blogging a lot about psychology and analyzing what makes a highly engaging product. Nir eventually published a book on that topic: Hooked - How to Build Habit-Forming Produ...In June of 2013, I was introduced to Nir Eyal through Ryan Hoover. Nir had been blogging a lot about psychology and analyzing what makes a highly engaging product. Nir eventually published a book on that topic: Hooked - How to Build Habit-Forming Products. Hooked is a guide to building habit-forming technology, written for product managers, designers, marketers, and startup founders.
In this episode we get into how you can design your products, especially the initial experience, to create traction. We also get into my addiction to iTunes.
Hooked comes out on hard-cover on November 4th.
Show notes
Nir's web page is: www.nirandfar.com
www.hookmodel.com
He tweets at: twitter.com/nireyal
Note from Justin
This interview is a smaller segment of a full-interview with Nir, available on Product People Club. Go to productpeople.club, and sign up for the waiting list. Screenshots are up now!
Want to help the show? If you could go to iTunes leave a nice review that would be superb. Also: if you're listening on Stitcher, please leave a review on there!
Cheers,
Justin Jackson
@mijustin
Music: Lethal Force by Striker, visit them at striker-metal.comJustin Jacksonno51:04EP68: Brian Casel on productized serviceshttp://productpeople.tv/2014/10/23/ep68-brian-casel/
http://productpeople.tv/2014/10/23/ep68-brian-casel/#commentsThu, 23 Oct 2014 22:04:11 +0000http://productpeople.tv/?p=326Brian Casel is a bootstrapper with a lot of projects: he has a podcast, a hosting platform called Restaurant Engine, and a new course called Productize.We talked about Brian’s story (from developing WordPress themes, to building an audience online) as well as what a productized service is.

]]>http://productpeople.tv/2014/10/23/ep68-brian-casel/feed/1bootstrap,saas,services,wordpressBrian Casel is a bootstrapper with a lot of projects: he has a podcast, a hosting platform called Restaurant Engine, and a new course called Productize.We talked about Brian's story (from developing Wordpress themes,Brian Casel is a bootstrapper with a lot of projects: he has a podcast, a hosting platform called Restaurant Engine, and a new course called Productize.We talked about Brian's story (from developing Wordpress themes, to building an audience online) as well as what a productized service is.
Show notes
Brian's new course is: http://casjam.com/productize/
Brian is the host of: http://bootstrappedweb.com/
He tweets at: https://twitter.com/CasJam
His products are here: http://casjam.com/
Note from Justin
This interview is a smaller segment of a full-interview with Brian, available on Product People Club. Go to productpeople.club, and sign up for the waiting list. Screenshots are up now!
Want to help the show? If you could go to iTunes leave a nice review that would be superb. Also: if you're listening on Stitcher, please leave a review on there!
Cheers,
Justin Jackson
@mijustin
Music: Lethal Force by Striker, visit them at striker-metal.comJustin Jacksonno55:56EP67: Mike Rohde is building a sketchnote armyhttp://productpeople.tv/2014/10/02/ep67-mike-rohde/
http://productpeople.tv/2014/10/02/ep67-mike-rohde/#commentsThu, 02 Oct 2014 19:33:36 +0000http://productpeople.tv/?p=322Mike Rohde is a designer and an author, but he’s probably best known for illustrating the 37signals books: Rework and Remote. Mike is now building his own products: The Sketchnote Handbook, and the Sketchnote Workbook. Both are unique books, which also include video. Mike has a secret agenda: to get more people drawing again.

]]>http://productpeople.tv/2014/10/02/ep67-mike-rohde/feed/0author,book,self-publishingMike Rohde is a designer and an author, but he's probably best known for illustrating the 37signals books: Rework and Remote. Mike is now building his own products: The Sketchnote Handbook, and the Sketchnote Workbook. Both are unique books,Mike Rohde is a designer and an author, but he's probably best known for illustrating the 37signals books: Rework and Remote. Mike is now building his own products: The Sketchnote Handbook, and the Sketchnote Workbook. Both are unique books, which also include video. Mike has a secret agenda: to get more people drawing again.
Show notes
XOXO Festival
"Let's make some stuff"
Mike Rohde's homepage
Mike Rohde on Twitter
Buy Mike's first book: The Sketchnote Handbook
Buy Mike's new book: The Sketchnote Workbook
Subscribe to Mike's newsletter
Documentary: Jiro Dreams of Sushi
Note from Justin
This interview is a smaller segment of a full-interview with Mike, available on Product People Club. Go to productpeople.club, and sign up for the waiting list. Screenshots are up now!
Want to help the show? If you could go to iTunes leave a nice review that would be superb. Also: if you're listening on Stitcher, please leave a review on there!
Cheers,
Justin Jackson
@mijustin
Music: Lethal Force by Striker, visit them at striker-metal.comJustin Jacksonno37:18EP66: Marc-André Cournoyer on making the leaphttp://productpeople.tv/2014/09/04/ep66-marc-andre-cournoyer/
http://productpeople.tv/2014/09/04/ep66-marc-andre-cournoyer/#commentsThu, 04 Sep 2014 22:05:15 +0000http://productpeople.tv/?p=319Marc-André Cournoyer is a passionate coder and product person from Montreal, Quebec. If you’re a developer, engineer, or technical person looking to make the jump to building products, you’re going to love this one.

]]>http://productpeople.tv/2014/09/04/ep66-marc-andre-cournoyer/feed/0code,developers,engineer,marketingMarc-André Cournoyer is a passionate coder and product person from Montreal, Quebec. If you're a developer, engineer, or technical person looking to make the jump to building products, you're going to love this one. Show notes Marc's homepage Marc-André Cournoyer is a passionate coder and product person from Montreal, Quebec. If you're a developer, engineer, or technical person looking to make the jump to building products, you're going to love this one.
Show notes
Marc's homepage
Marc on Twitter
Owning Rails
Great Code Club
Note from Justin
This interview is a smaller segment of a full-interview with Marc, available on Product People Club. Go to productpeople.club, and sign up for the waiting list. Screenshots are up now!
Want to help the show? If you could go to iTunes leave a nice review that would be superb. Also: if you're listening on Stitcher, please leave a review on there!
Cheers,
Justin Jackson
@mijustin
Music: Land of the Lost and Can’t Stop the Rush by Striker, visit them at striker-metal.comJustin Jacksonno39:56EP65: Andreea and building Startup Kithttp://productpeople.tv/2014/08/28/ep65-startupkit/
http://productpeople.tv/2014/08/28/ep65-startupkit/#commentsThu, 28 Aug 2014 20:06:59 +0000http://productpeople.tv/?p=316Andreea Mihalcea is a dynamic young founder from Romania. Her and her team are building a new product called Startup Kit. I loved her insights into how and why people buy software products. Startup Kit is targeting an interesting problem: managers and CTOs who need to get a handle on what products their team is using and paying for.

Notable quotes

“When you’re working on a team, you have to make sure that your tools play nice with other team’s tools” – Andreea Mihalcea

]]>http://productpeople.tv/2014/08/28/ep65-startupkit/feed/0beta,startupsAndreea Mihalcea is a dynamic young founder from Romania. Her and her team are building a new product called Startup Kit. I loved her insights into how and why people buy software products. Startup Kit is targeting an interesting problem: managers and ...Andreea Mihalcea is a dynamic young founder from Romania. Her and her team are building a new product called Startup Kit. I loved her insights into how and why people buy software products. Startup Kit is targeting an interesting problem: managers and CTOs who need to get a handle on what products their team is using and paying for.
Notable quotes
"When you're working on a team, you have to make sure that your tools play nice with other team's tools" - Andreea Mihalcea
Show notes
StartupKit.io
Startup Kit blog
Startup Kit on Twitter
Startup Kit on Medium
Andreea on Twitter
Note from Justin
This interview is a smaller segment of a full-interview with Andreea, available on Product People Club. Go to productpeople.club, and sign up for the waiting list. Screenshots are up now!
Want to help the show? If you could go to iTunes leave a nice review that would be superb. Also: if you're listening on Stitcher, please leave a review on there!
Cheers,
Justin Jackson
@mijustin
Music: Land of the Lost and Can’t Stop the Rush by Striker, visit them at striker-metal.comJustin Jacksonno26:11EP64: Jarrod Drysdale on bootstrapping designhttp://productpeople.tv/2014/08/21/ep64-jarrod-drysdale/
http://productpeople.tv/2014/08/21/ep64-jarrod-drysdale/#commentsThu, 21 Aug 2014 13:15:23 +0000http://productpeople.tv/?p=312First, you need to know that Jarrod Drysdale is a good dude. He’s also the author of Bootstrapping Design, and the creator of Cascade.io. He’s smart, and humble, and talented and he has tons of great things to say about building products, succeeding and failing, and the importance of really caring for the people you’re serving.

]]>http://productpeople.tv/2014/08/21/ep64-jarrod-drysdale/feed/0bootstrap,design,solopreneurFirst, you need to know that Jarrod Drysdale is a good dude. He's also the author of Bootstrapping Design, and the creator of Cascade.io. He's smart, and humble, and talented and he has tons of great things to say about building products,First, you need to know that Jarrod Drysdale is a good dude. He's also the author of Bootstrapping Design, and the creator of Cascade.io. He's smart, and humble, and talented and he has tons of great things to say about building products, succeeding and failing, and the importance of really caring for the people you're serving.
Show notes
Jarrod's blog
Jarrod on Twitter
Bootstrapping Design
Cascade.io
Note from Justin
This interview is a smaller segment of a full-interview with Jarrod, available on Product People Club. Go to productpeople.club, and sign up for the waiting list. Screenshots are up now!
Want to help the show? If you could go to iTunes leave a nice review that would be superb. Also: if you're listening on Stitcher, please leave a review on there!
Cheers,
Justin Jackson
@mijustin
Music: Land of the Lost and Can’t Stop the Rush by Striker, visit them at striker-metal.comJustin Jacksonno42:05EP63: Sacha Greif – how things get popularhttp://productpeople.tv/2014/08/14/ep63-sacha-greif/
http://productpeople.tv/2014/08/14/ep63-sacha-greif/#commentsFri, 15 Aug 2014 01:09:43 +0000http://productpeople.tv/?p=310Sacha Greif joined me again for a chat on how he marketed Discover Meteor, and why certain blog posts get popular.

]]>http://productpeople.tv/2014/08/14/ep63-sacha-greif/feed/0author,design,ebook,marketing,popularSacha Greif joined me again for a chat on how he marketed Discover Meteor, and why certain blog posts get popular. - Notable quotes "I've always believed that people really respond to quality content." - Sacha Greif - Sacha Greif joined me again for a chat on how he marketed Discover Meteor, and why certain blog posts get popular.
Notable quotes
"I've always believed that people really respond to quality content." - Sacha Greif
"You can tell when someone has written something with no research; getting quality data, screenshots, and diagrams really helps." - Sacha Greif
"There's a direct relationship between the amount of time I put into a blog post, and how popular it is" - Sacha Greif
"People respond to books: they don't want to have to look through 20 blog posts." - Sacha Greif
"I did something I shouldn't have done - and I put all my eggs in one basket." - Sacha Greif
"My first book is really short: it's like 40 pages. I didn't spend 6 months in a cave building it." - Sacha Greif
Show notes
Sacha Greif's website
Sacha Greif on Twitter
Discover Meteor
Note from Justin
This interview is a smaller segment of a full-interview with Sacha, available in Build Your Own Audience. It's available here: justinjackson.ca/audiencecourse. You can also sign up to my mailing list.
Want to help the show? If you could go to iTunes leave a nice review that would be superb. Also: if you're listening on Stitcher, please leave a review on there!
Cheers,
Justin Jackson
@mijustin
PS: By the way, I'm working on something new called Product People Club. Go to productpeople.club, and sign up for the waiting list. Screenshots are up now!
Music: Land of the Lost and Can’t Stop the Rush by Striker, visit them at striker-metal.comJustin Jacksonno32:06EP62: Paul Jarvis is always hungryhttp://productpeople.tv/2014/08/07/ep62-paul-jarvis/
http://productpeople.tv/2014/08/07/ep62-paul-jarvis/#commentsThu, 07 Aug 2014 13:00:54 +0000http://productpeople.tv/?p=307I freakin’ love Paul Jarvis. He’s creative, he’s unique, and he’s Canadian.

]]>http://productpeople.tv/2014/08/07/ep62-paul-jarvis/feed/0audience,author,canada,canadian,customer,design,writingI freakin' love Paul Jarvis. He's creative, he's unique, and he's Canadian. - Notable quotes "When you work for yourself, your boss is an asshole" - Paul Jarvis - "I'm vegan so I'm always hungry" - Paul Jarvis - I freakin' love Paul Jarvis. He's creative, he's unique, and he's Canadian.
Notable quotes
"When you work for yourself, your boss is an asshole" - Paul Jarvis
"I'm vegan so I'm always hungry" - Paul Jarvis
"I want to help people build their business online." - Paul Jarvis
"It's funny: people think that when they're done school, they're done with homework. Do a bit of homework! You'll stand out." - Paul Jarvis
"People don't hire web designers because of skills. They want someone they trust." - Paul Jarvis
"You gotta go to them: you got to go where your audience lives and where your audience spends their time." - Paul Jarvis
"It's all about who you know, and whether those people trust you." - Paul Jarvis
"The only way to guarantee failure is to stop trying." - Paul Jarvis
Show notes
Paul's website
Paul's Twitter
Work like you're on vacation
Brennan's DYFR
Note from Justin
This interview is a smaller segment of a full-interview with Paul, available in Build Your Own Audience. It's available here: justinjackson.ca/audiencecourse. You can also sign up to my mailing list.
Want to help the show? If you could go to iTunes leave a nice review that would be superb. Also: if you're listening on Stitcher, please leave a review on there!
Cheers,
Justin Jackson
@mijustin
PS: By the way, I'm working on something new called Product People Club. Go to productpeople.club, and sign up for the waiting list. I’ll have something to announce shortly!
Music: Land of the Lost and Can’t Stop the Rush by Striker, visit them at striker-metal.comJustin Jacksonno38:03EP61: Nate Kontny says “Solve your own problems!”http://productpeople.tv/2014/07/24/ep61-nate-kontny/
http://productpeople.tv/2014/07/24/ep61-nate-kontny/#commentsThu, 24 Jul 2014 09:00:32 +0000http://productpeople.tv/?p=303Today’s interview is with one of my favourite people on the internet: Nate Kontny. He’s the solo-founder of Draft, a web application that helps you improve your writing through collaboration. He also blogs at Ninjas and Robots.

Notable quotes

“Solve your own problems!” – Nate Kontny

“Take two or things in your life that your passionate about, and merge them together. Then you’ll start creating cool things.” – Nate Kontny

Show notes

Note from Justin

I’m releasing a new course (based on my sold-out workshops) called Build Your Own Audience. It will be available on July 29th at justinjackson.ca/audience. You can sign up to my mailing list and get early access on July 25th.

I need your help. People don’t know the show is back, releasing new episodes every Thursday. I took a break back in October, and people think the show is still offline. If you could go to iTunes leave a nice review that would be superb.

Also: if you’re listening on Stitcher, please leave a review on there!

]]>http://productpeople.tv/2014/07/24/ep61-nate-kontny/feed/1Today’s interview is with one of my favourite people on the internet: Nate Kontny. He’s the solo-founder of Draft, a web application that helps you improve your writing through collaboration. He also blogs at Ninjas and Robots. - Notable quotes Today’s interview is with one of my favourite people on the internet: Nate Kontny. He’s the solo-founder of Draft, a web application that helps you improve your writing through collaboration. He also blogs at Ninjas and Robots.
Notable quotes
“Solve your own problems!” - Nate Kontny
“Take two or things in your life that your passionate about, and merge them together. Then you’ll start creating cool things.” - Nate Kontny
Show notes
Draft
Nate's blog
Nate on Twitter
Note from Justin
I'm releasing a new course (based on my sold-out workshops) called Build Your Own Audience. It will be available on July 29th at justinjackson.ca/audience. You can sign up to my mailing list and get early access on July 25th.
I need your help. People don't know the show is back, releasing new episodes every Thursday. I took a break back in October, and people think the show is still offline. If you could go to iTunes leave a nice review that would be superb.
Also: if you're listening on Stitcher, please leave a review on there!
Cheers,
Justin Jackson
@mijustin
PS: By the way, I'm working on something new called Product People Club. Go to productpeople.club, and sign up for the waiting list. I’ll have something to announce shortly!
Music: Land of the Lost and Can’t Stop the Rush by Striker, visit them at striker-metal.comJustin Jacksonno43:12EP60: Hear how Ryan Hoover built Product Hunt in 4 dayshttp://productpeople.tv/2014/07/17/ep60-ryan-hoover/
http://productpeople.tv/2014/07/17/ep60-ryan-hoover/#commentsThu, 17 Jul 2014 18:33:00 +0000http://productpeople.tv/?p=300This week’s guest is Ryan Hoover. We’ve been online friends for a few years now. Back in 2013, Ryan invited me to join a new site he’d created called ProductHunt.com. In the last 3 weeks, it’s exploded. He was interviewed on Fox News, he was interviewed on This Week in Startups, AND he just announced that he’s joined YCombinator.

I actually recorded this episode on January 24, 2014 (5 months ago) – before Product Hunt got huge. I thought it would be interesting to revisit that conversation: to hear from the Ryan Hoover that hadn’t yet achieved all this recent success.

Once you hear it, you’ll understand why Ryan’s done so well: he built an audience (by blogging, and creating Startup Edition), and then focused on creating something valuable for that community.

Notable quotes

“I’ve always been entrepreneurial: as a child I created little joke books, and operated gum ball machines.” – Ryan Hoover

“I didn’t know what a Product Manager was 6 months before I became one.” – Ryan Hoover

Show notes

Note from Justin

I need your help. People don’t know the show is back, releasing new episodes every Thursday. I took a break back in October, and people think the show is still offline. If you could go to iTunes leave a nice review that would be superb.

Also: if you’re listening on Stitcher, please leave a review on there!

]]>http://productpeople.tv/2014/07/17/ep60-ryan-hoover/feed/4This week’s guest is Ryan Hoover. We've been online friends for a few years now. Back in 2013, Ryan invited me to join a new site he'd created called ProductHunt.com. In the last 3 weeks, it's exploded. He was interviewed on Fox News,This week’s guest is Ryan Hoover. We've been online friends for a few years now. Back in 2013, Ryan invited me to join a new site he'd created called ProductHunt.com. In the last 3 weeks, it's exploded. He was interviewed on Fox News, he was interviewed on This Week in Startups, AND he just announced that he’s joined YCombinator.
I actually recorded this episode on January 24, 2014 (5 months ago) - before Product Hunt got huge. I thought it would be interesting to revisit that conversation: to hear from the Ryan Hoover that hadn't yet achieved all this recent success.
Once you hear it, you'll understand why Ryan's done so well: he built an audience (by blogging, and creating Startup Edition), and then focused on creating something valuable for that community.
Notable quotes
"I've always been entrepreneurial: as a child I created little joke books, and operated gum ball machines." - Ryan Hoover
"I didn't know what a Product Manager was 6 months before I became one." - Ryan Hoover
"We built Product Hunt over 4 days, during Thanksgiving." - Ryan Hoover
"Inspiration is perishable." - Jason Fried
"I need to keep reminding myself that I can't predict the future." - Ryan Hoover
Show notes
Ryan Hoover's blog
Ryan Hoover twitter
Product Hunt
Nathan Bashaw
TWIST interview
Fox News interview
TechCrunch: Ryan Hoover joins YCombinator
Telescope by Sacha Greif
Note from Justin
I need your help. People don't know the show is back, releasing new episodes every Thursday. I took a break back in October, and people think the show is still offline. If you could go to iTunes leave a nice review that would be superb.
Also: if you're listening on Stitcher, please leave a review on there!
Cheers,
Justin Jackson
@mijustin
PS: By the way, I'm working on something new called Product People Club. Go to productpeople.club, and sign up for the waiting list. I’ll have something to announce shortly!
Music: Land of the Lost and Can’t Stop the Rush by Striker, visit them at striker-metal.comJustin Jacksonno36:29EP59: Dan Norris and the 7 day startuphttp://productpeople.tv/2014/07/10/ep59-dan-norris/
http://productpeople.tv/2014/07/10/ep59-dan-norris/#commentsThu, 10 Jul 2014 09:00:10 +0000http://productpeople.tv/?p=294Dan Norris is the co-founder of WP Curve, and the author of The 7 Day Startup. He gave himself 1 year to build a profitable product. After spending a year on a product called Inform.ly, with no profits to show for it, he came up with the idea for WP Curve, and made it got his first paying customer in 4 days.

]]>http://productpeople.tv/2014/07/10/ep59-dan-norris/feed/3lean,startup,wordpressDan Norris is the co-founder of WP Curve, and the author of The 7 Day Startup. He gave himself 1 year to build a profitable product. After spending a year on a product called Inform.ly, with no profits to show for it,Dan Norris is the co-founder of WP Curve, and the author of The 7 Day Startup. He gave himself 1 year to build a profitable product. After spending a year on a product called Inform.ly, with no profits to show for it, he came up with the idea for WP Curve, and made it got his first paying customer in 4 days.
Notable quotes:
"With my first business, I just wasn't selling something people wanted." - Dan Norris
"We've launched 4 business in the last 12 months, and 3 of them failed. We started listening to customers and focused on the 1 business that was working." - Dan Norris
"Don't make decisions based on assumption." - Dan Norris
"Launch the business in a week; and then don't make any more assumptions. Make the decisions after you launch." - Dan Norris
"With WP Curve I knew right away that people would pay for it. With my first business, I had to build it for 6 months before I could figure out that people would pay for it." - Dan Norris
"The only two people who can give you real feedback about your product are people who just purchased it and people who just canceled." - Jason Fried via Dan Shipper
"When people cancel, we ask them a simple question: what did we do wrong?" - Dan Norris
Show notes
WP Curve
The 7 Day Startup
Dan Norris on Twitter
WP Curve co-founder Alex McClafferty
Cheers,
Justin Jackson
@mijustin
PS: By the way, I'm working on something new called Product People Club. Go to productpeople.club, and sign up for the waiting list. I’ll have something to announce shortly!
Music: Land of the Lost and Can’t Stop the Rush by Striker, visit them at striker-metal.comJustin Jacksonno37:00EP58: Garrett Dimon – SaaS isn’t all rainbows and unicornshttp://productpeople.tv/2014/07/03/ep58-garrett-dimon/
http://productpeople.tv/2014/07/03/ep58-garrett-dimon/#commentsThu, 03 Jul 2014 16:15:35 +0000http://productpeople.tv/?p=291Garrett Dimon is the founder of Sifter and author of Starting + Sustaining. We talked about finding an idea, validating an idea, and building your product. Our conversation started with this question: “What are the biggest misconceptions about running a SaaS product?”

Notable quotes:

“If you just want to create stuff, and write code, starting a business is not the best way to do that.” – Garrett Dimon

“I definitely thought I was would be able to do more development and design; but it’s not really like that” – Garrett Dimon

“People don’t describer their problems to us – they email us and tell us what they want us to build. That makes it difficult to see what their root problem is.” – Garrett Dimon

]]>http://productpeople.tv/2014/07/03/ep58-garrett-dimon/feed/0app,saas,software,webGarrett Dimon is the founder of Sifter and author of Starting + Sustaining. We talked about finding an idea, validating an idea, and building your product. Our conversation started with this question: "What are the biggest misconceptions about running ...Garrett Dimon is the founder of Sifter and author of Starting + Sustaining. We talked about finding an idea, validating an idea, and building your product. Our conversation started with this question: "What are the biggest misconceptions about running a SaaS product?"
Notable quotes:
"If you just want to create stuff, and write code, starting a business is not the best way to do that." - Garrett Dimon
"I definitely thought I was would be able to do more development and design; but it's not really like that" - Garrett Dimon
"People don't describer their problems to us - they email us and tell us what they want us to build. That makes it difficult to see what their root problem is." - Garrett Dimon
"We don't compete on features." - Garrett Dimon
"No is easier to do. Yes is easier to say." - Jason Fried
Show notes
Starting and Sustaining
Sifter
Garrett Dimon's blog
Garrett Dimon on Twitter
Cheers,
Justin Jackson
@mijustin
PS: By the way, I'm working on something new called Product People Club. Go to productpeople.club, and sign up for the waiting list. I’ll have something to announce shortly!
Music by Striker Metal, Song: ForeverJustin Jacksonno40:43EP57: Brennan Dunn talks about the marketing machinehttp://productpeople.tv/2014/06/26/ep57-brennan-dunn/
http://productpeople.tv/2014/06/26/ep57-brennan-dunn/#commentsFri, 27 Jun 2014 05:47:07 +0000http://productpeople.tv/?p=288Brennan Dunn is the go-to guy to talk about marketing automation. He’s build a SaaS, called Planscope, but these days he recommends first-time entrepreneurs build something smaller (like an eBook, or a webinar). He’s also the author of Double Your Freelancing Rate, and has lots of good insight on pricing, marketing, and automating your sales funnel.

Notable quotes:

“We get so fixated on the medium (is it a SaaS, ebook, webinar) when really all that matters is the results for the customer.” – Brennan Dunn

“Dentists are not typically googling around for dental software. To make the sale, you’ll need to knock on their door, and make a presentation. It’s not about the product, it’s about getting it in their hands.” – Brennan Dunn

“You want to tap into things that are actually affecting someone’s bottom line. Go back to the dentist example: is the dentist losing money with his crappy terminal based dental software? You have to tap into actual core needs.” – Brennan Dunn

]]>http://productpeople.tv/2014/06/26/ep57-brennan-dunn/feed/0automation,ebook,marketing,saasBrennan Dunn is the go-to guy to talk about marketing automation. He's build a SaaS, called Planscope, but these days he recommends first-time entrepreneurs build something smaller (like an eBook, or a webinar).Brennan Dunn is the go-to guy to talk about marketing automation. He's build a SaaS, called Planscope, but these days he recommends first-time entrepreneurs build something smaller (like an eBook, or a webinar). He's also the author of Double Your Freelancing Rate, and has lots of good insight on pricing, marketing, and automating your sales funnel.
Notable quotes:
“We get so fixated on the medium (is it a SaaS, ebook, webinar) when really all that matters is the results for the customer.” - Brennan Dunn
“Dentists are not typically googling around for dental software. To make the sale, you’ll need to knock on their door, and make a presentation. It’s not about the product, it’s about getting it in their hands.” - Brennan Dunn
“You want to tap into things that are actually affecting someone’s bottom line. Go back to the dentist example: is the dentist losing money with his crappy terminal based dental software? You have to tap into actual core needs.” - Brennan Dunn
Show notes
Brennan Dunn on Twitter
Brennan Dunn's blog
Planscope
Double Your Freelancing Rate
Cheers,
Justin Jackson
@mijustin
PS: By the way, I'm working on something new called Product People Club. Go to productpeople.club, and sign up for the waiting list. I’ll have something to announce shortly!
Music by Striker Metal, Song: Fight for your RightJustin Jacksonno39:20EP56: Sean Fioritto on succeeding after failinghttp://productpeople.tv/2014/06/19/ep56-sean/
http://productpeople.tv/2014/06/19/ep56-sean/#commentsThu, 19 Jun 2014 13:00:39 +0000http://productpeople.tv/?p=285Ok, so ages ago I interviewed Sean Fioritto, the author of Sketching with CSS. I like Sean a lot. He’s from Chicago, and he struggled for years trying to build products. Then he wrote this book, and it took off. You’ll hear his story, and how he succeeded after lots of failures.

I haven’t put out an episode in awhile. I have a bunch recorded but I haven’t had time to edit them and put them out. I’ve just been slammed: haven’t had time or energy for anything. It’s been pedal to the metal at work – we’re dealing with that Canadian Anti-Spam Legislation right now. Geez. And at home, there’s just always stuff to bring the kids to, appointments, classes, activities. So I’ve been drained!

Anyways. I’m hoping to put an end to this Product People drought, and start releasing episodes every Thursday now. So subscribe, and watch for new episode every Thursday.

On that topic. I’ve got a landing page up for something new: it’s called Product People Club. Go to productpeople.club on the internet, and sign up for the waiting list because I’ll have something to announce shortly.

Notable quotes:

“There’s a lot of different failure modes, and I’ve pretty much done all of them.” – Sean Fioritto

“I’ve got to give Amy Hoy and 30×500 for giving me the right structure for building products. The main thing I figured out is you can’t start with an idea.” – Sean Fioritto

“Starting with an idea is a self-centered way to build a product.” – Sean Fioritto

“If you’re a bootstrapper, you don’t have time to waste.” – Sean Fioritto

]]>http://productpeople.tv/2014/06/19/ep56-sean/feed/030x500,books,failure,successOk, so ages ago I interviewed Sean Fioritto, the author of Sketching with CSS. I like Sean a lot. He’s from Chicago, and he struggled for years trying to build products. Then he wrote this book, and it took off. You'll hear his story,Ok, so ages ago I interviewed Sean Fioritto, the author of Sketching with CSS. I like Sean a lot. He’s from Chicago, and he struggled for years trying to build products. Then he wrote this book, and it took off. You'll hear his story, and how he succeeded after lots of failures.
I haven’t put out an episode in awhile. I have a bunch recorded but I haven’t had time to edit them and put them out. I’ve just been slammed: haven’t had time or energy for anything. It’s been pedal to the metal at work - we’re dealing with that Canadian Anti-Spam Legislation right now. Geez. And at home, there’s just always stuff to bring the kids to, appointments, classes, activities. So I’ve been drained!
Anyways. I’m hoping to put an end to this Product People drought, and start releasing episodes every Thursday now. So subscribe, and watch for new episode every Thursday.
On that topic. I’ve got a landing page up for something new: it’s called Product People Club. Go to productpeople.club on the internet, and sign up for the waiting list because I’ll have something to announce shortly.
Notable quotes:
"There's a lot of different failure modes, and I've pretty much done all of them." - Sean Fioritto
"I've got to give Amy Hoy and 30x500 for giving me the right structure for building products. The main thing I figured out is you can't start with an idea." - Sean Fioritto
"Starting with an idea is a self-centered way to build a product." - Sean Fioritto
"If you're a bootstrapper, you don't have time to waste." - Sean Fioritto
Show notes
Sean on Twitter
Sketching with CSS
Flexbox Tutorial
Music: Land of the Lost and Can't Stop the Rush by Striker, visit them at striker-metal.com
Cheers,
Justin Jackson
@mijustin
PS: By the way, this interview is available in full video in my upcoming book: Marketing for Developers. Click here to sign-up for updates (and get a sample PDF).Justin Jacksonno37:45EP55: Patio11 on promoting your producthttp://productpeople.tv/2014/04/11/ep55-patio11/
http://productpeople.tv/2014/04/11/ep55-patio11/#commentsFri, 11 Apr 2014 22:45:15 +0000http://productpeople.tv/?p=279This week you’ll hear from Patrick Mackenzie (Patio11 on the internet), an influential member of the self-funded, bootstrapping community, as well as a high profile member of Hacker News. Patrick is a great guest: he’s a great storyteller, and is always completely himself. (He does some great voice impressions too)

Our topic was: how to market yourself, make connections, and promote that app, SaaS, or other product you’ve just built.

Notable quotes:

“I like to play League of Legends. The vast majority of people will never make a living off League of Legends. If you want to build your business on something like LoL, that’s probably not the best things.” – Patio11

“Self-promotion is not accepted by the community at every watering hole on the internet. Hacker News is a bit of an anomaly, because Hacker News is a community who are making or starting businesses.” – Patio11

“I haven’t submitted my stuff to Hacker News in years. I’m also really careful about what I publish. Before I publish a blog post, I ask: ‘Is this post worthy of being in the top 5 of Hacker News?'” – Patio11

“The Hacker News launch is like a mini version of the Techcrunch launch. But I wouldn’t bet the success of my business based on whether or not it gets to the top of Hacker News.” – Patio11

“My first internet business launched to a total of 76 people the first day. You can build your reputation organically, by building awesome things over time.” – Patio11

]]>http://productpeople.tv/2014/04/11/ep55-patio11/feed/1community,forums,marketing,products,promotionThis week you'll hear from Patrick Mackenzie (Patio11 on the internet), an influential member of the self-funded, bootstrapping community, as well as a high profile member of Hacker News. Patrick is a great guest: he's a great storyteller,This week you'll hear from Patrick Mackenzie (Patio11 on the internet), an influential member of the self-funded, bootstrapping community, as well as a high profile member of Hacker News. Patrick is a great guest: he's a great storyteller, and is always completely himself. (He does some great voice impressions too)
Our topic was: how to market yourself, make connections, and promote that app, SaaS, or other product you've just built.
Notable quotes:
"I like to play League of Legends. The vast majority of people will never make a living off League of Legends. If you want to build your business on something like LoL, that's probably not the best things." - Patio11
"Self-promotion is not accepted by the community at every watering hole on the internet. Hacker News is a bit of an anomaly, because Hacker News is a community who are making or starting businesses." - Patio11
"I haven't submitted my stuff to Hacker News in years. I'm also really careful about what I publish. Before I publish a blog post, I ask: 'Is this post worthy of being in the top 5 of Hacker News?'" - Patio11
"The Hacker News launch is like a mini version of the Techcrunch launch. But I wouldn't bet the success of my business based on whether or not it gets to the top of Hacker News." - Patio11
"My first internet business launched to a total of 76 people the first day. You can build your reputation organically, by building awesome things over time." - Patio11
Show notes
Patrick's email list
Patrick's blog
Patrick's book on conversion optimization
Appointment Reminder
A note from Justin:
A big thanks to Patrick for being on the show!
Cheers,
Justin Jackson
@mijustin
PS: I'm writing a new book right now called Marketing for Developers. Click here to sign-up for updates (and get a sample PDF).Justin Jacksonno56:06EP54: DHH on why 37signals is becoming Basecamphttp://productpeople.tv/2014/03/17/ep54-dhh-on-why-37signals-is-becoming-basecamp/
http://productpeople.tv/2014/03/17/ep54-dhh-on-why-37signals-is-becoming-basecamp/#commentsMon, 17 Mar 2014 23:14:49 +0000http://productpeople.tv/?p=272David Heinemeier Hansson started working with Jason Fried at 37signals about 14-15 years ago. 10 years ago, they created Basecamp, their first SaaS product. This past week they decided to stop using the 37signals brand, and sell off (or stop developing) their other products (notably Highrise and Campfire).

Our topic was: Why is 37signals changing it’s name to Basecamp? How will this change the company? Was it worth building those other products?

Notable quotes:

“Basecamp was special because it was forged out of constraints.” – DHH

“I’m interested in trade-offs where it’s not easy: everyone wants more. More stuff, more money, more, more, more. What I find interesting is: ‘I want more peace of mind, and I’m going to give up some things for that.'” – DHH

]]>http://productpeople.tv/2014/03/17/ep54-dhh-on-why-37signals-is-becoming-basecamp/feed/137signals,basecamp,dhhDavid Heinemeier Hansson started working with Jason Fried at 37signals about 14-15 years ago. 10 years ago, they created Basecamp, their first SaaS product. This past week they decided to stop using the 37signals brand,David Heinemeier Hansson started working with Jason Fried at 37signals about 14-15 years ago. 10 years ago, they created Basecamp, their first SaaS product. This past week they decided to stop using the 37signals brand, and sell off (or stop developing) their other products (notably Highrise and Campfire).
Our topic was: Why is 37signals changing it's name to Basecamp? How will this change the company? Was it worth building those other products?
Notable quotes:
"Basecamp was special because it was forged out of constraints." - DHH
"I'm interested in trade-offs where it's not easy: everyone wants more. More stuff, more money, more, more, more. What I find interesting is: 'I want more peace of mind, and I'm going to give up some things for that.'" - DHH
Show notes
Announcement: 37signals is becoming Basecamp
The new Basecamp
2006 interview: who is 37signals?
A note from Justin:
A big thanks to David for being on the show!
Cheers,
Justin Jackson
@mijustin
PS: I'm writing a new book right now called Marketing for Developers. Click here to sign-up for updates (and get a sample PDF).Justin Jacksonno48:46EP53: Alex Hillman is the king of JFDIhttp://productpeople.tv/2014/02/21/ep53-alex-hillman-is-the-king-of-jfdi/
http://productpeople.tv/2014/02/21/ep53-alex-hillman-is-the-king-of-jfdi/#commentsSat, 22 Feb 2014 01:26:10 +0000http://productpeople.tv/?p=268Alex Hillman is many things: first, he’s the king of JFDI (he even has the tattoo to prove it). Second: he’s the founder of IndyHall, a co-working space in Philadelphia. Third: he’s Amy Hoy’s partner in 30×500. And fourth: he’s just recently launched his own product called GroupBuzz.io.

Our topic was: What do communities & product businesses have in common?

Notable quotes

“Having a connection with people is really important. A lot of people build tools without thinking about the people that are using them.” – Alex Hillman

“It’s not hard to get a group of people in a room. It’s hard getting a group of people doing something useful together.” – Alex Hillman

“Cult of personality is one of the most dangerous things for a community.” – Alex Hillman

“Customer interviews are bullshit. Not because people are mean, because they’re too nice. You have to observe what they do, not what they say.” – Alex Hillman

“Put a lot more stock in what people do as opposed to what they say. Be a pattern watcher. Pay attention to how people act.” – Alex Hillman

]]>http://productpeople.tv/2014/02/21/ep53-alex-hillman-is-the-king-of-jfdi/feed/130x500,community,jfdiAlex Hillman is many things: first, he’s the king of JFDI (he even has the tattoo to prove it). Second: he’s the founder of IndyHall, a co-working space in Philadelphia. Third: he’s Amy Hoy’s partner in 30×500.Alex Hillman is many things: first, he’s the king of JFDI (he even has the tattoo to prove it). Second: he’s the founder of IndyHall, a co-working space in Philadelphia. Third: he’s Amy Hoy’s partner in 30×500. And fourth: he’s just recently launched his own product called GroupBuzz.io.
Our topic was: What do communities & product businesses have in common?
Notable quotes
“Having a connection with people is really important. A lot of people build tools without thinking about the people that are using them.” - Alex Hillman
“It’s not hard to get a group of people in a room. It’s hard getting a group of people doing something useful together.” - Alex Hillman
“Cult of personality is one of the most dangerous things for a community.” - Alex Hillman
“Customer interviews are bullshit. Not because people are mean, because they’re too nice. You have to observe what they do, not what they say.” - Alex Hillman
“Put a lot more stock in what people do as opposed to what they say. Be a pattern watcher. Pay attention to how people act.” - Alex Hillman
Show notes
GroupBuzz.io
The Bullseye Model
Alex on Twitter
Alex's blog
30x500
Justin's JFDI community
A note from Justin:
A big thanks to Alex for being on the show!
Cheers,
Justin Jackson
@mijustin
PS: I'm writing a new book right now called Marketing for Developers. Click here to sign-up for updates (and get a sample PDF).Justin Jacksonno59:20EP52: Amy Hoy – “Why it’s not about you”http://productpeople.tv/2014/02/07/amy-hoy/
http://productpeople.tv/2014/02/07/amy-hoy/#commentsSat, 08 Feb 2014 01:21:30 +0000http://productpeople.tv/?p=265Amy Hoy is known for her unfiltered, straight-shooting opinions on building product businesses. Her and her husband Thomas Fuchs have built Freckle, an awesome time-tracking web app – and have become well known in the bootstrapping, design, and Ruby on Rails communities. Amy is also a passionate teacher: her and Alex Hillman run the excellent 30×500 bootcamp whose students include the likes of Brennan Dunn, Chris Hartjes, and Jaana Kulmala.

Our topic was: finding an audience, discovering needs, and building products people want.

Notable quotes

“The core problem with so many businesses is that they’re based on what the business owner wants.”

“They’re fantasizing about being the hero: “I’m going to ride in on my white ‘software’ horse, and save these poor people.”

“As much as you can, you want to sell to people who will use your product. People who buy your product and don’t use it will never buy from you again.”

“Target people already in motion.”

“Selling to wannabes has the least amount of upside; people who already have a business are more likely to spend money.”

“I would rather have no money, than know that the vast majority of people that gave me the money aren’t achieving what they wanted to. If that’s true, I don’t want to be in that business.”

]]>http://productpeople.tv/2014/02/07/amy-hoy/feed/7Amy Hoy is known for her unfiltered, straight-shooting opinions on building product businesses. Her and her husband Thomas Fuchs have built Freckle, an awesome time-tracking web app - and have become well known in the bootstrapping, design,Amy Hoy is known for her unfiltered, straight-shooting opinions on building product businesses. Her and her husband Thomas Fuchs have built Freckle, an awesome time-tracking web app - and have become well known in the bootstrapping, design, and Ruby on Rails communities. Amy is also a passionate teacher: her and Alex Hillman run the excellent 30x500 bootcamp whose students include the likes of Brennan Dunn, Chris Hartjes, and Jaana Kulmala.
Our topic was: finding an audience, discovering needs, and building products people want.
Notable quotes
"The core problem with so many businesses is that they’re based on what the business owner wants."
"They’re fantasizing about being the hero: “I’m going to ride in on my white ‘software’ horse, and save these poor people."
"As much as you can, you want to sell to people who will use your product. People who buy your product and don’t use it will never buy from you again."
"Target people already in motion."
"Selling to wannabes has the least amount of upside; people who already have a business are more likely to spend money.”
"I would rather have no money, than know that the vast majority of people that gave me the money aren't achieving what they wanted to. If that's true, I don't want to be in that business."
"Being in business forces you to become a better human being."
Show notes
Freckle Time Tracking
30x500
Amy's blog post on why Freckle became successful
The legend of 30x500
A note from Justin:
A big thanks to Amy Hoy for being Amy: no bullshit, nothing held back. Just real, hard advice for product people.
Cheers,
Justin Jackson
@mijustin
PS: I'm writing a new book right now called Marketing for Developers. Click here to sign-up for updates (and get a sample PDF).Justin Jacksonno57:14Surprise! Brand new episode with Nathan Barryhttp://productpeople.tv/2013/12/31/surprise-brand-new-episode-with-nathan-barry/
http://productpeople.tv/2013/12/31/surprise-brand-new-episode-with-nathan-barry/#commentsTue, 31 Dec 2013 20:16:48 +0000http://productpeople.tv/?p=260Wait a second, I thought this show was cancelled?

Welcome to a brand new episode of Product People: this is the show that exposes you to the scrappy underworld of people creating their own products. No bullshit, no pretending: what does it take to build and launch your own thing?

This my conversation with Nathan Barry. It originally occurred on the community I run for bootstrappers called JFDI.BZ (Just Fucking Do It). JFDI members were able to ask questions live, and have access to the full (video) interview. The podcast version is abridged, but has a lot of great stuff: specifically for building an email list.

]]>http://productpeople.tv/2013/12/31/surprise-brand-new-episode-with-nathan-barry/feed/0ebooks,email,saasWait a second, I thought this show was cancelled? ;) - Welcome to a brand new episode of Product People: this is the show that exposes you to the scrappy underworld of people creating their own products. No bullshit,Wait a second, I thought this show was cancelled? ;)
Welcome to a brand new episode of Product People: this is the show that exposes you to the scrappy underworld of people creating their own products. No bullshit, no pretending: what does it take to build and launch your own thing?
This my conversation with Nathan Barry. It originally occurred on the community I run for bootstrappers called JFDI.BZ (Just Fucking Do It). JFDI members were able to ask questions live, and have access to the full (video) interview. The podcast version is abridged, but has a lot of great stuff: specifically for building an email list.
If you'd like to become a JFDI member, you can sign-up here.
Show notes
Nathanbarry.com
Convertkit.com
Nathan on Twitter
PS: want more?
Get bootstrapping goodies, and advice on how to build and launch your own thing: justinjackson.ca/newsletter
Read my latest post: Succeed with your own products in 2014
Subscribe to my free course on building your own email list.Justin Jacksonno31:54EP50: Jakub Linowski of GoodUi.orghttp://productpeople.tv/2013/10/30/ep50-final-episode/
http://productpeople.tv/2013/10/30/ep50-final-episode/#commentsWed, 30 Oct 2013 09:00:08 +0000http://productpeople.tv/?p=252Jakub Linowski is a Toronto (Canada) based interface designer. He surprised everybody this year (including himself) by releasing a viral hit called GoodUI.org. In this interview we go behind the scenes, and try to unpack that success. There’s lots of good insights in here for content marketing and conversion optimization.

Sponsors

This show wouldn’t be possible without these great sponsors. When you support them, you support the show!

Are you creating an application that needs charts or a dashboard? FusionCharts is a JavaScript charting solution trusted by over 450,000 developers around the world. They have tons of interactive and animated charts with advanced features like tooltips, drill-down, chart export and zoom. Their charts also work across PCs, Macs, iPads, iPhones and Android devices. You can download a free-trial at:

Sprint.ly has been there from the beginning. Perfect for software teams of 3 or more people, Sprint.ly is the easiest way for managers and developers to track the software development process. You and your team can try Sprint.ly for free, go to www.sprint.ly.

Use the code productpeopletv2013 to get 10% off!

Notable quotes

“What stirred the discussion was that people were pissed off about the fat, big footer (where the email signup was).”

“People were asking: what’s this ‘good ui’ guy doing with that big footer?”

“If you look at conversion optimization, the footer was a clear success. My conversion rate on that email sign-up is 20%. I have over 26,000 people on my list right now.”

“There’s a few factors that affected the success of sign-ups: the visibility of the call to action, plus a promise for future content, plus visuals that a depict a clear idea (they were sketched out on purpose), social proof, a small number of fields (just email), no commitment, the ability to unsubscribe at any time”

“It costs me $200/month to send emails to this list.”

“Your landing page should be opinionated. This will fuel the debate and discussion. On Goodui.org I had this element of ‘this vs that'; I think stat stirs interest.”

Show notes

]]>http://productpeople.tv/2013/10/30/ep50-final-episode/feed/1canada,conversion,design,email,landingpage,lists,uiJakub Linowski is a Toronto (Canada) based interface designer. He surprised everybody this year (including himself) by releasing a viral hit called GoodUI.org. In this interview we go behind the scenes, and try to unpack that success.Jakub Linowski is a Toronto (Canada) based interface designer. He surprised everybody this year (including himself) by releasing a viral hit called GoodUI.org. In this interview we go behind the scenes, and try to unpack that success. There's lots of good insights in here for content marketing and conversion optimization.
Sponsors
This show wouldn't be possible without these great sponsors. When you support them, you support the show!
Are you creating an application that needs charts or a dashboard? FusionCharts is a JavaScript charting solution trusted by over 450,000 developers around the world. They have tons of interactive and animated charts with advanced features like tooltips, drill-down, chart export and zoom. Their charts also work across PCs, Macs, iPads, iPhones and Android devices. You can download a free-trial at:
Go to fusioncharts.com
Sprint.ly has been there from the beginning. Perfect for software teams of 3 or more people, Sprint.ly is the easiest way for managers and developers to track the software development process. You and your team can try Sprint.ly for free, go to www.sprint.ly.
Use the code productpeopletv2013 to get 10% off!
Notable quotes
"What stirred the discussion was that people were pissed off about the fat, big footer (where the email signup was)."
"People were asking: what's this 'good ui' guy doing with that big footer?"
"If you look at conversion optimization, the footer was a clear success. My conversion rate on that email sign-up is 20%. I have over 26,000 people on my list right now."
"There's a few factors that affected the success of sign-ups: the visibility of the call to action, plus a promise for future content, plus visuals that a depict a clear idea (they were sketched out on purpose), social proof, a small number of fields (just email), no commitment, the ability to unsubscribe at any time"
"It costs me $200/month to send emails to this list."
"Your landing page should be opinionated. This will fuel the debate and discussion. On Goodui.org I had this element of 'this vs that'; I think stat stirs interest."
Show notes
Linowski.ca
Jakub on Twitter
GoodUI.orgJustin Jacksonno31:44EP49: No more excuses with Ruben Gamez (part 2)http://productpeople.tv/2013/10/23/ep49-ruben-gamez-part-2/
http://productpeople.tv/2013/10/23/ep49-ruben-gamez-part-2/#commentsWed, 23 Oct 2013 09:00:00 +0000http://productpeople.tv/?p=249If you’ve been making excuses as to why you can’t build your product, bootstrap your own business, or hire someone on oDesk? Well you need to listen to this episode because Ruben Gamez here to destroy all those objections. This is part 2 of our conversation.

Sponsors

This show wouldn’t be possible without these great sponsors. When you support them, you support the show!

Are you creating an application that needs charts or a dashboard? FusionCharts is a JavaScript charting solution trusted by over 450,000 developers around the world. They have tons of interactive and animated charts with advanced features like tooltips, drill-down, chart export and zoom. Their charts also work across PCs, Macs, iPads, iPhones and Android devices. You can download a free-trial at:

Sprint.ly has been there from the beginning. Perfect for software teams of 3 or more people, Sprint.ly is the easiest way for managers and developers to track the software development process. You and your team can try Sprint.ly for free, go to www.sprint.ly.

Use the code productpeopletv2013 to get 10% off!

Notable quotes

“In the early days, I spent from $6-$10 an hour on programmers from Odesk. Nowadays, when I hire developers I pay in the $20’s. It’s ways easier to find someone of better quality, when you pay them in the $20-$30 range. Now both of the developers I have are in Argentina.”

“The developers I’m hiring now, from Odesk, are better than the developers I worked with the USA that were making 6 figures.”

“I treat my full-time outsourced developers the same way I would treat a normal employee.”

“By outsourcing, I was able to build Buildsketch in 4 months. Quick.”

Show notes

]]>http://productpeople.tv/2013/10/23/ep49-ruben-gamez-part-2/feed/1boostrapping,hiring,odesk,outsourcing,saasIf you've been making excuses as to why you can't build your product, bootstrap your own business, or hire someone on oDesk? Well you need to listen to this episode because Ruben Gamez here to destroy all those objections.If you've been making excuses as to why you can't build your product, bootstrap your own business, or hire someone on oDesk? Well you need to listen to this episode because Ruben Gamez here to destroy all those objections. This is part 2 of our conversation.
Sponsors
This show wouldn't be possible without these great sponsors. When you support them, you support the show!
Are you creating an application that needs charts or a dashboard? FusionCharts is a JavaScript charting solution trusted by over 450,000 developers around the world. They have tons of interactive and animated charts with advanced features like tooltips, drill-down, chart export and zoom. Their charts also work across PCs, Macs, iPads, iPhones and Android devices. You can download a free-trial at:
Go to fusioncharts.com
Sprint.ly has been there from the beginning. Perfect for software teams of 3 or more people, Sprint.ly is the easiest way for managers and developers to track the software development process. You and your team can try Sprint.ly for free, go to www.sprint.ly.
Use the code productpeopletv2013 to get 10% off!
Notable quotes
"In the early days, I spent from $6-$10 an hour on programmers from Odesk. Nowadays, when I hire developers I pay in the $20's. It's ways easier to find someone of better quality, when you pay them in the $20-$30 range. Now both of the developers I have are in Argentina."
"The developers I'm hiring now, from Odesk, are better than the developers I worked with the USA that were making 6 figures."
"I treat my full-time outsourced developers the same way I would treat a normal employee."
"By outsourcing, I was able to build Buildsketch in 4 months. Quick."
Show notes
Ruben Gamez on Twitter
Bidsketch.com
Bidsketch blogJustin Jacksonno30:47EP48: Ruben Gamez thinks about business differently (part 1)http://productpeople.tv/2013/10/16/ep48-ruben-gamez-part-1/
http://productpeople.tv/2013/10/16/ep48-ruben-gamez-part-1/#commentsWed, 16 Oct 2013 09:00:07 +0000http://productpeople.tv/?p=245Ruben Gamez is one of the most thoughtful and wise entrepreneurs I’ve met. He has some great advice on outsourcing, staying focused, getting work done, and building a profitable business that’s not based on your personality.

Sponsors

This show wouldn’t be possible without these great sponsors. When you support them, you support the show!

Are you creating an application that needs charts or a dashboard? FusionCharts is a JavaScript charting solution trusted by over 450,000 developers around the world. They have tons of interactive and animated charts with advanced features like tooltips, drill-down, chart export and zoom. Their charts also work across PCs, Macs, iPads, iPhones and Android devices. You can download a free-trial at:

Sprint.ly has been there from the beginning. Perfect for software teams of 3 or more people, Sprint.ly is the easiest way for managers and developers to track the software development process. You and your team can try Sprint.ly for free, go to www.sprint.ly.

Use the code productpeopletv2013 to get 10% off!

Notable quotes

“When you’re browsing Odesk, I always filter by 4 stars or better.”

“In the early days, I spent from $6-$10 an hour on programmers from Odesk. Nowadays, when I hire developers I pay in the $20’s. It’s ways easier to find someone of better quality, when you pay them in the $20-$30 range. Now both of the developers I have are in Argentina.”

“The developers I’m hiring now, from Odesk, are better than the developers I worked with the USA that were making 6 figures.”

Show notes

]]>http://productpeople.tv/2013/10/16/ep48-ruben-gamez-part-1/feed/0odesk,outsourcing,saasRuben Gamez is one of the most thoughtful and wise entrepreneurs I've met. He has some great advice on outsourcing, staying focused, getting work done, and building a profitable business that's not based on your personality. - Sponsors Ruben Gamez is one of the most thoughtful and wise entrepreneurs I've met. He has some great advice on outsourcing, staying focused, getting work done, and building a profitable business that's not based on your personality.
Sponsors
This show wouldn't be possible without these great sponsors. When you support them, you support the show!
Are you creating an application that needs charts or a dashboard? FusionCharts is a JavaScript charting solution trusted by over 450,000 developers around the world. They have tons of interactive and animated charts with advanced features like tooltips, drill-down, chart export and zoom. Their charts also work across PCs, Macs, iPads, iPhones and Android devices. You can download a free-trial at:
Go to fusioncharts.com
Sprint.ly has been there from the beginning. Perfect for software teams of 3 or more people, Sprint.ly is the easiest way for managers and developers to track the software development process. You and your team can try Sprint.ly for free, go to www.sprint.ly.
Use the code productpeopletv2013 to get 10% off!
Notable quotes
"When you're browsing Odesk, I always filter by 4 stars or better."
"In the early days, I spent from $6-$10 an hour on programmers from Odesk. Nowadays, when I hire developers I pay in the $20's. It's ways easier to find someone of better quality, when you pay them in the $20-$30 range. Now both of the developers I have are in Argentina."
"The developers I'm hiring now, from Odesk, are better than the developers I worked with the USA that were making 6 figures."
Show notes
Ruben Gamez on Twitter
Bidsketch.comJustin Jacksonno27:01EP47: Meat and potatoes with Chase Reeves (part 2)http://productpeople.tv/2013/10/09/ep47-chase-reeves-part-2/
http://productpeople.tv/2013/10/09/ep47-chase-reeves-part-2/#commentsWed, 09 Oct 2013 09:00:45 +0000http://productpeople.tv/?p=240This week I get into the meat and potatoes with Chase Reeves. This is part 2 of our discussion.

This week we talk about that struggle of building products, especially when you’re just starting out, and trying to figure out which direction to go in.

Sponsors

This show wouldn’t be possible without these great sponsors. When you support them, you support the show!

Are you creating an application that needs charts or a dashboard? FusionCharts is a JavaScript charting solution trusted by over 450,000 developers around the world. They have tons of interactive and animated charts with advanced features like tooltips, drill-down, chart export and zoom. Their charts also work across PCs, Macs, iPads, iPhones and Android devices. You can download a free-trial at:

Sprint.ly has been there from the beginning. Perfect for software teams of 3 or more people, Sprint.ly is the easiest way for managers and developers to track the software development process. You and your team can try Sprint.ly for free, go to www.sprint.ly.

Use the code productpeopletv2013 to get 10% off!

Notable quotes

“I’m essentially a marketing guy, who’s trying to make something instead of just sell something.”

“I have my Bachelor of Science in Religious Studies. It’s true. I have one of those.”

“Why do I love Louis CK so much? He makes me feel comfortable in my own skin.”

“Why am I working so hard? Why wouldn’t I just become a janitor?”

“What could I do? I’m just a guy that could be a pretty decent blues band.”

“How much do you worry about money now?”

“You can have a successful business in 10 years, if you start right now. You can’t expect it to happen in 1 year; you should probably think about it happening over 4 years”

Show notes

]]>http://productpeople.tv/2013/10/09/ep47-chase-reeves-part-2/feed/1motivation,startingThis week I get into the meat and potatoes with Chase Reeves. This is part 2 of our discussion. This week we talk about that struggle of building products, especially when you're just starting out, and trying to figure out which direction to go in. - This week I get into the meat and potatoes with Chase Reeves. This is part 2 of our discussion.
This week we talk about that struggle of building products, especially when you're just starting out, and trying to figure out which direction to go in.
Sponsors
This show wouldn't be possible without these great sponsors. When you support them, you support the show!
Are you creating an application that needs charts or a dashboard? FusionCharts is a JavaScript charting solution trusted by over 450,000 developers around the world. They have tons of interactive and animated charts with advanced features like tooltips, drill-down, chart export and zoom. Their charts also work across PCs, Macs, iPads, iPhones and Android devices. You can download a free-trial at:
Go to fusioncharts.com
Sprint.ly has been there from the beginning. Perfect for software teams of 3 or more people, Sprint.ly is the easiest way for managers and developers to track the software development process. You and your team can try Sprint.ly for free, go to www.sprint.ly.
Use the code productpeopletv2013 to get 10% off!
Notable quotes
"I'm essentially a marketing guy, who's trying to make something instead of just sell something."
"I have my Bachelor of Science in Religious Studies. It's true. I have one of those."
"Why do I love Louis CK so much? He makes me feel comfortable in my own skin."
"Why am I working so hard? Why wouldn't I just become a janitor?"
"What could I do? I'm just a guy that could be a pretty decent blues band."
"How much do you worry about money now?"
"You can have a successful business in 10 years, if you start right now. You can't expect it to happen in 1 year; you should probably think about it happening over 4 years"
Show notes
Chase Reeves on Twitter
Chase Reeves' blog
Fizzle.co
His old blog: Write to Mean
Chase Reeves on Adam Clark's the Gently Madd
Proper ConfidenceJustin Jacksonno38:26EP46: Chase Reeves has important things to discusshttp://productpeople.tv/2013/10/02/ep46-chase-reeves-part-1/
http://productpeople.tv/2013/10/02/ep46-chase-reeves-part-1/#commentsWed, 02 Oct 2013 09:00:51 +0000http://productpeople.tv/?p=238This week, I’m joined by a man. A man named Chase Reeves. We’re going to talk about the business they’re building over there at Fizzle.co.

Chase and I both like to talk, so this is a two-parter! This is part 1.

Sponsors

This show wouldn’t be possible without these great sponsors. When you support them, you support the show!

Are you creating an application that needs charts or a dashboard? FusionCharts is a JavaScript charting solution trusted by over 450,000 developers around the world. They have tons of interactive and animated charts with advanced features like tooltips, drill-down, chart export and zoom. Their charts also work across PCs, Macs, iPads, iPhones and Android devices. You can download a free-trial at:

Sprint.ly has been there from the beginning. Perfect for software teams of 3 or more people, Sprint.ly is the easiest way for managers and developers to track the software development process. You and your team can try Sprint.ly for free, go to www.sprint.ly.

Use the code productpeopletv2013 to get 10% off!

Notable quotes

“There’s a lot of drama and pasta in how you say JavaScript.”

“I was a self-taught, no lessons webby designer guy.”

“My first freelance gig was with Corbett Bar; by the time I was done his website, we were in partnership discussions.”

“That church background steeps you into existential questions: and these lead to creative endeavours. It also gives you lots of opportunities to be creative.”

“The tip is, be willing to be an apprentice underneath someone who’s more advanced than you.”

“With partners: waste as much time as you can, just talking. Get on the phone and just talk.”

“There’s something humanizing in just talking to someone; hearing their voice.”

“Do your creative stuff in the morning. In the afternoon do customer support, email, meetings.”

“Good for you Ryan!”

Show notes

]]>http://productpeople.tv/2013/10/02/ep46-chase-reeves-part-1/feed/0honesty,people,starting outThis week, I’m joined by a man. A man named Chase Reeves. We’re going to talk about the business they’re building over there at Fizzle.co. Chase and I both like to talk, so this is a two-parter! This is part 1. - Sponsors This week, I’m joined by a man. A man named Chase Reeves. We’re going to talk about the business they’re building over there at Fizzle.co.
Chase and I both like to talk, so this is a two-parter! This is part 1.
Sponsors
This show wouldn't be possible without these great sponsors. When you support them, you support the show!
Are you creating an application that needs charts or a dashboard? FusionCharts is a JavaScript charting solution trusted by over 450,000 developers around the world. They have tons of interactive and animated charts with advanced features like tooltips, drill-down, chart export and zoom. Their charts also work across PCs, Macs, iPads, iPhones and Android devices. You can download a free-trial at:
Go to fusioncharts.com
Sprint.ly has been there from the beginning. Perfect for software teams of 3 or more people, Sprint.ly is the easiest way for managers and developers to track the software development process. You and your team can try Sprint.ly for free, go to www.sprint.ly.
Use the code productpeopletv2013 to get 10% off!
Notable quotes
"There's a lot of drama and pasta in how you say JavaScript."
"I was a self-taught, no lessons webby designer guy."
"My first freelance gig was with Corbett Bar; by the time I was done his website, we were in partnership discussions."
"That church background steeps you into existential questions: and these lead to creative endeavours. It also gives you lots of opportunities to be creative."
"The tip is, be willing to be an apprentice underneath someone who's more advanced than you."
"With partners: waste as much time as you can, just talking. Get on the phone and just talk."
"There's something humanizing in just talking to someone; hearing their voice."
"Do your creative stuff in the morning. In the afternoon do customer support, email, meetings."
"Good for you Ryan!"
Show notes
Chase Reeves on Twitter
Chase Reeves' blog
Fizzle.co
His old blog: Write to Mean
Chase Reeves on Adam Clark's the Gently Madd
Kevin Rose's conversation with Ryan Carson (Foundation)Justin Jacksonno40:33EP45: Goals with Patio11, DHH, Derek Sivers, Spencer Fry, Dan Norris, John Saddington, Chris Enns, Tim Smith, Adam Clarkhttp://productpeople.tv/2013/09/25/ep45-goals-with-patio11-dhh-spencer-fry-dan-norris-john-saddington-chris-enns-tim-smith-adam-clark/
http://productpeople.tv/2013/09/25/ep45-goals-with-patio11-dhh-spencer-fry-dan-norris-john-saddington-chris-enns-tim-smith-adam-clark/#commentsWed, 25 Sep 2013 09:00:27 +0000http://productpeople.tv/?p=232Chris Enns, Tim Smith, and Adam Clark have a great podcast called the Intellectual Radio Program. I was recently listening to episode 8 on SSKTN.com. And right near the end, Chris has this beautifully honest moment, where he describes the frustration I think a lot of us feel when it comes to building our own products:

How long do you hold on to something you’ve built?

His co-host, Adam Clark pipes in, and brings up the topic we’re going to discuss today:

It all depends on your goals.

Goals. This is something I’ve been thinking about recently. On Product People we focus a lot on tactics, and the processes people used to launch products (whether it’s a web app, an ebook, or downloadable software). But as I’ve reviewed a lot of these episodes, there’s this trend that keeps coming up: successful product people set goals.

I have to admit, I’m a little burnt out on goals. The other day I found a list of goals I’d written in a college. I think there were about 25 items on the list. Some goals I’d met, other goals I hadn’t; but that’s not the point. I think for a lot of us, setting goals reminds us of that 10 year year plan a lot of us wrote in school – it was kind of a bucket list.

But the goals that successful entrepreneurs set are different. And we’re going to discuss those in this episode with advice from people like Patio11, DHH, Spencer Fry, Dan Norris, and John Saddington.

Marketing for developers

]]>http://productpeople.tv/2013/09/25/ep45-goals-with-patio11-dhh-spencer-fry-dan-norris-john-saddington-chris-enns-tim-smith-adam-clark/feed/0goalsChris Enns, Tim Smith, and Adam Clark have a great podcast called the Intellectual Radio Program. I was recently listening to episode 8 on SSKTN.com. And right near the end, Chris has this beautifully honest moment,Chris Enns, Tim Smith, and Adam Clark have a great podcast called the Intellectual Radio Program. I was recently listening to episode 8 on SSKTN.com. And right near the end, Chris has this beautifully honest moment, where he describes the frustration I think a lot of us feel when it comes to building our own products:
How long do you hold on to something you've built?
His co-host, Adam Clark pipes in, and brings up the topic we're going to discuss today:
It all depends on your goals.
Goals. This is something I've been thinking about recently. On Product People we focus a lot on tactics, and the processes people used to launch products (whether it's a web app, an ebook, or downloadable software). But as I've reviewed a lot of these episodes, there's this trend that keeps coming up: successful product people set goals.
I have to admit, I'm a little burnt out on goals. The other day I found a list of goals I'd written in a college. I think there were about 25 items on the list. Some goals I'd met, other goals I hadn't; but that's not the point. I think for a lot of us, setting goals reminds us of that 10 year year plan a lot of us wrote in school - it was kind of a bucket list.
But the goals that successful entrepreneurs set are different. And we're going to discuss those in this episode with advice from people like Patio11, DHH, Spencer Fry, Dan Norris, and John Saddington.
Show notes
Intellectual Radio Program, Episode 8
Patio11 Interview
John Saddington Interview
Dan Norris Interview
Spencer Fry Interview
DHH Interview
"If it's not a hit, switch" - Derek Sivers (VIDEO)
Cheers,
Justin Jackson
@mijustin
Marketing for developers
I'm writing a new book called Marketing for Developers. You can download a 21 page sample here.Justin Jacksonno23:24EP44: DHH at 200 miles per hour (part 2)http://productpeople.tv/2013/09/18/ep44-how-dhh-became-a-partner-at-37signals-part-2/
http://productpeople.tv/2013/09/18/ep44-how-dhh-became-a-partner-at-37signals-part-2/#commentsWed, 18 Sep 2013 09:00:19 +0000http://productpeople.tv/?p=229In our last episode we talked about how David started working as a contractor for 37signals making $15 an hour. He eventually worked his way up, and became an owner in the company (along with Jason Fried). In this episode we talk about he and Jason work together on a daily basis – and we go behind the scenes on their decision to rebuild Basecamp. We also talk about how he got into driving race cars (a mere 2 years after he got his license).

This is part 2 of the interview.

Sponsors

This show wouldn’t be possible without these great sponsors. When you support them, you support the show!

Are you creating an application that needs charts or a dashboard? FusionCharts is a JavaScript charting solution trusted by over 450,000 developers around the world. They have tons of interactive and animated charts with advanced features like tooltips, drill-down, chart export and zoom. Their charts also work across PCs, Macs, iPads, iPhones and Android devices. You can download a free-trial at:

Sprint.ly has been there from the beginning. Perfect for software teams of 3 or more people, Sprint.ly is the easiest way for managers and developers to track the software development process. You and your team can try Sprint.ly for free, go to www.sprint.ly.

Use the code productpeopletv2013 to get 10% off!

And let me share with you something that one of our listeners is working on: Follow @TopSideConcepts on Twitter.Randy is working on a product that will help companies improve their service by prioritizing input from customers. It’s a really neat concept. Check it out: www.topsideconcepts.com

Notable quotes

“When you’re starting to build something new, it doesn’t really help to have a bunch of cooks in the kitchen.”

What are you doing now?

“We have a new product idea in mind. I’m doing the same thing I did on BCX; just me and a designer, just spiking things out. If we decide to go ahead and build it, we’ll involve more people.”

Do you just like building new stuff?

“No, I’m not just about greenfield development. I get a lot of pleasure about building things to last – I’m still working on Ruby on Rails a decade after I made the first changes. That’s still really satisfying to me. To me it’s just programming that’s fun.”

“Driving race cars is a dangerous amount of fun.”

“When I discovered Ruby, I wanted to spread the wealth – to share it with as many programmers as I could.”

“What is really interesting to me (about programming) is getting in the zone; where you lose track of time, and other concerns. That’s a rare state of mind to be in.”

]]>http://productpeople.tv/2013/09/18/ep44-how-dhh-became-a-partner-at-37signals-part-2/feed/037signals,dhh,racing,saasIn our last episode we talked about how David started working as a contractor for 37signals making $15 an hour. He eventually worked his way up, and became an owner in the company (along with Jason Fried). In this episode we talk about he and Jason wor...In our last episode we talked about how David started working as a contractor for 37signals making $15 an hour. He eventually worked his way up, and became an owner in the company (along with Jason Fried). In this episode we talk about he and Jason work together on a daily basis - and we go behind the scenes on their decision to rebuild Basecamp. We also talk about how he got into driving race cars (a mere 2 years after he got his license).
This is part 2 of the interview.
Sponsors
This show wouldn't be possible without these great sponsors. When you support them, you support the show!
Are you creating an application that needs charts or a dashboard? FusionCharts is a JavaScript charting solution trusted by over 450,000 developers around the world. They have tons of interactive and animated charts with advanced features like tooltips, drill-down, chart export and zoom. Their charts also work across PCs, Macs, iPads, iPhones and Android devices. You can download a free-trial at:
Go to fusioncharts.com
Sprint.ly has been there from the beginning. Perfect for software teams of 3 or more people, Sprint.ly is the easiest way for managers and developers to track the software development process. You and your team can try Sprint.ly for free, go to www.sprint.ly.
Use the code productpeopletv2013 to get 10% off!
And let me share with you something that one of our listeners is working on: Follow @TopSideConcepts on Twitter.Randy is working on a product that will help companies improve their service by prioritizing input from customers. It's a really neat concept. Check it out: www.topsideconcepts.com
Notable quotes
"When you're starting to build something new, it doesn't really help to have a bunch of cooks in the kitchen."
What are you doing now?
"We have a new product idea in mind. I'm doing the same thing I did on BCX; just me and a designer, just spiking things out. If we decide to go ahead and build it, we'll involve more people."
Do you just like building new stuff?
"No, I'm not just about greenfield development. I get a lot of pleasure about building things to last - I'm still working on Ruby on Rails a decade after I made the first changes. That's still really satisfying to me. To me it's just programming that's fun."
"Driving race cars is a dangerous amount of fun."
"When I discovered Ruby, I wanted to spread the wealth - to share it with as many programmers as I could."
"What is really interesting to me (about programming) is getting in the zone; where you lose track of time, and other concerns. That's a rare state of mind to be in."
Show notes
Remote: Office not required (David and Jason's new book - out October 29, 2013)
DHH Racing on Twitter
DHH Racing website
DHH Racing YouTube channel
Book: Flow
DHH on Twitter
David's personal blog
Ruby on RailsJustin Jacksonno24:50EP43: DHH, a personal interview (part 1)http://productpeople.tv/2013/09/11/ep43-dhh-part1/
http://productpeople.tv/2013/09/11/ep43-dhh-part1/#commentsWed, 11 Sep 2013 09:00:26 +0000http://productpeople.tv/?p=225David Heinemeier Hansson started working with Jason Fried as a contract worker from Denmark. How did he eventually become a partner at 37signals?

I’ve kept in touch with David over the years, and we’d planned on doing an interview for awhile now. It finally happened this past week. This is a pretty personal interview. I spoke with David about growing up in Copenhagen, and how he met Jason (there’s a great story in there). We also discussed his new book (with Jason Fried) called Remote, and how he stays motivated when writing. This is part 1 of the interview.

Sponsors

This show wouldn’t be possible without these great sponsors. When you support them, you support the show!

Are you creating an application that needs charts or a dashboard? FusionCharts is a JavaScript charting solution trusted by over 450,000 developers around the world. They have tons of interactive and animated charts with advanced features like tooltips, drill-down, chart export and zoom. Their charts also work across PCs, Macs, iPads, iPhones and Android devices. You can download a free-trial at:

Sprint.ly has been there from the beginning. Perfect for software teams of 3 or more people, Sprint.ly is the easiest way for managers and developers to track the software development process. You and your team can try Sprint.ly for free, go to www.sprint.ly.

Use the code productpeopletv2013 to get 10% off!

And let me share with you something that one of our listeners is working on: Follow @TopSideConcepts on Twitter.Randy is working on a product that will help companies improve their service by prioritizing input from customers. It’s a really neat concept. Check it out: www.topsideconcepts.com

Notable quotes

Can anyone at 37signals take advantage of moving to warmer climates?

“Absolutely: I think about 1/4 of our people are in Chicago. We have quite a few people have moved around a lot. I think Jeremy Kemper, who’s on the Rails core team, has moved about 4 or 5 times; mostly to warmer places on the West Coast. One of our support people, Kristin, just moved from Chicago to Portland. So, we definitely have people who take advantage of wherever they want to live. This is one of the great benefits of remote working – you can choose to live exactly where you want to, and it doesn’t really matter. I don’t drop a beat: it doesn’t matter if I’m in Spain or Chicago.”

“For me, personally, it’s great to not be in the same city as everyone else. I do my best work in solitude. I love those short bursts of bandwidth with in-person collaboration.”

“People overemphasize the benefits of collaboration. Collaboration is great; but it’s overused in terms as a tool.”

“For me, the most important part of writing is having something to say.”

What’s your strategy for writing?

“I’ve been working on this book for the past 10 years (in terms of my forming the ideas, and gather the experiences). When it came to recording it all, the best strategy for me was to put on the turbo chargers and get it done.”

“[Growing up] I always loved good writing. That was my inspiration for starting my own magazine in high school.”

“That happens a lot: I get inspired by something, or someone, and say – ‘Hey, I want to do that to.'”

Show notes

]]>http://productpeople.tv/2013/09/11/ep43-dhh-part1/feed/637signals,dhh,remote,saasDavid Heinemeier Hansson started working with Jason Fried as a contract worker from Denmark. How did he eventually become a partner at 37signals? - I've kept in touch with David over the years, and we'd planned on doing an interview for awhile now.David Heinemeier Hansson started working with Jason Fried as a contract worker from Denmark. How did he eventually become a partner at 37signals?
I've kept in touch with David over the years, and we'd planned on doing an interview for awhile now. It finally happened this past week. This is a pretty personal interview. I spoke with David about growing up in Copenhagen, and how he met Jason (there's a great story in there). We also discussed his new book (with Jason Fried) called Remote, and how he stays motivated when writing. This is part 1 of the interview.
Sponsors
This show wouldn't be possible without these great sponsors. When you support them, you support the show!
Are you creating an application that needs charts or a dashboard? FusionCharts is a JavaScript charting solution trusted by over 450,000 developers around the world. They have tons of interactive and animated charts with advanced features like tooltips, drill-down, chart export and zoom. Their charts also work across PCs, Macs, iPads, iPhones and Android devices. You can download a free-trial at:
Go to fusioncharts.com
Sprint.ly has been there from the beginning. Perfect for software teams of 3 or more people, Sprint.ly is the easiest way for managers and developers to track the software development process. You and your team can try Sprint.ly for free, go to www.sprint.ly.
Use the code productpeopletv2013 to get 10% off!
And let me share with you something that one of our listeners is working on: Follow @TopSideConcepts on Twitter.Randy is working on a product that will help companies improve their service by prioritizing input from customers. It's a really neat concept. Check it out: www.topsideconcepts.com
Notable quotes
Can anyone at 37signals take advantage of moving to warmer climates?
"Absolutely: I think about 1/4 of our people are in Chicago. We have quite a few people have moved around a lot. I think Jeremy Kemper, who's on the Rails core team, has moved about 4 or 5 times; mostly to warmer places on the West Coast. One of our support people, Kristin, just moved from Chicago to Portland. So, we definitely have people who take advantage of wherever they want to live. This is one of the great benefits of remote working - you can choose to live exactly where you want to, and it doesn't really matter. I don't drop a beat: it doesn't matter if I'm in Spain or Chicago."
"For me, personally, it's great to not be in the same city as everyone else. I do my best work in solitude. I love those short bursts of bandwidth with in-person collaboration."
"People overemphasize the benefits of collaboration. Collaboration is great; but it's overused in terms as a tool."
"For me, the most important part of writing is having something to say."
What's your strategy for writing?
"I've been working on this book for the past 10 years (in terms of my forming the ideas, and gather the experiences). When it came to recording it all, the best strategy for me was to put on the turbo chargers and get it done."
"[Growing up] I always loved good writing. That was my inspiration for starting my own magazine in high school."
"That happens a lot: I get inspired by something, or someone, and say - 'Hey, I want to do that to.'"
Show notes
Remote: Office not required (David and Jason's new book - out October 29, 2013)
"Inspiration is perishable"
DHH on Twitter
David's personal blogJustin Jacksonno29:50EP42: Is self-publishing getting saturated? Nathan Barry, Sacha Greif, Paul Jarvishttp://productpeople.tv/2013/09/04/ep42-self-publishing/
http://productpeople.tv/2013/09/04/ep42-self-publishing/#commentsWed, 04 Sep 2013 09:00:41 +0000http://productpeople.tv/?p=222Paul Jarvis (Everything I Know), Sacha Greif (Discover Meteor), and Nathan Barry (Authority) invited me to host a Self-Publishing Hangout with them this week. It was a great opportunity for me, because I’m about to publish my first “book” (Amplification). Our Google Hangout ended being a 2 hour marathon of us sharing our experience with writing, publishing, and promoting eBooks, as well as answering questions from everybody in the chat room.

In Part 2 we discuss:

is the self-publishing market getting saturated?

the publishing process: what tools do you use to create your books?

what do you outsource?

should you publish your book for free?

pricing your ebook

Sponsors

This show wouldn’t be possible without these great sponsors. When you support them, you support the show!

Are you creating an application that needs charts or a dashboard? FusionCharts is a JavaScript charting solution trusted by over 450,000 developers around the world. They have tons of interactive and animated charts with advanced features like tooltips, drill-down, chart export and zoom. Their charts also work across PCs, Macs, iPads, iPhones and Android devices. You can download a free-trial at:

Sprint.ly has been there from the beginning. Perfect for software teams of 3 or more people, Sprint.ly is the easiest way for managers and developers to track the software development process. You and your team can try Sprint.ly for free, go to www.sprint.ly.

Use the code productpeopletv2013 to get 10% off!

I just released my first downloadable course called Amplification. Creating great content isn’t enough; to get it seen by thousands, you need amplification. In the course, I share my experience with viral posts like “This is a web page” and show you real stats from my website. Then I’ll share with you the steps for amplifying your posts to bigger audiences.

Notable quotes

Is the market for self-published books getting saturated right now?

Justin: “In our space (tech, design, dev, bootstrapping) it used to be there were only a few people doing it (Amy Hoy, Chris Guillebeau). Next, there was grassroots people who followed their lead, and came on the scene: Nathan Barry, Sacha Greif, Paul Jarvis. But now it seems like there are a lot of more established people getting in to publishing: Adii Pienaar, Shawn Blanc, Mike McDerment (Freshbooks). Do you think there’s too many players in this space now?”

Sacha: “I don’t think so. I think maybe it seems that way to us because we’re so involved in this space. Although it’s true that there are a lot of books coming out now for people like us: books about design, and books about self-publishing; that niche might get saturated soon. But the vast majority of ebooks are about other things: CSS, food… that will never get saturated.”

Nathan: “I think there will always be demand to pay $50 or less for high quality content that’s really specific to a topic you care about (as a reader). Instead of going through 50 blog posts on the internet, you spend a little bit of money to get the best stuff on that topic in a PDF. I don’t think it will become too saturated. We also tend to run in really specific circles on the internet and so when we see something we think: wow the whole internet is talking about this, when in reality it’s just your tiny little corner, and 12 people.”

Justin: “The hard thing is… if you’re already ‘in’ and you already have an audience, it’s easier to say that it’s not saturated. Certain niches can definitely get saturated. Rob Walling just commented on his podcast that there’s been a big, noticeable increase in the number of people asking him (and other founders) to do interviews for books. If it’s true, that there is more saturation, it means that everybody’s quality and uniqueness will have to go up – you’ll need to offer something that no one else is doing.”

Brennan Dunn (from the chat room): “Rob was mainly arguing against ebook “authors” who just publish a bunch of other people’s writing. e.g. email a bunch of people, compile them into book, profit.”

Amy Hoy (from the chat room): “Yeah, there’s a definitely a saturation level with ‘I’m not gonna do any work on this product but you should still pay me’ LOL”

Michael Hartl (from the chat room): “This is still early, early days for ebook publishing.”

Sacha: “I think the key point is quality. For example: interviews are really interesting, but there also really easy to do; that’s why there are a lot of e-books that are just a collection of interviews. Unless you’re a professional interviewer, your questions might not always be interesting. So that niche might produce a lot of low quality ebooks. But if that gets saturated, who cares? It will only push people to make higher quality books.”

Justin: “Yeah. And maybe that’s something else we have to be prepared for: the professional ebook critic. Right now it’s a fairly friendly space.”

Paul: “You should read some of my comments on GoodReads: there are some reviewers that don’t like stuff that are vocal.”

Show notes

]]>http://productpeople.tv/2013/09/04/ep42-self-publishing/feed/1ebook,ebooks,self-publishingPaul Jarvis (Everything I Know), Sacha Greif (Discover Meteor), and Nathan Barry (Authority) invited me to host a Self-Publishing Hangout with them this week. It was a great opportunity for me, because I'm about to publish my first "book" (Amplificatio...Paul Jarvis (Everything I Know), Sacha Greif (Discover Meteor), and Nathan Barry (Authority) invited me to host a Self-Publishing Hangout with them this week. It was a great opportunity for me, because I'm about to publish my first "book" (Amplification). Our Google Hangout ended being a 2 hour marathon of us sharing our experience with writing, publishing, and promoting eBooks, as well as answering questions from everybody in the chat room.
In Part 2 we discuss:
is the self-publishing market getting saturated?
the publishing process: what tools do you use to create your books?
what do you outsource?
should you publish your book for free?
pricing your ebook
Sponsors
This show wouldn't be possible without these great sponsors. When you support them, you support the show!
Are you creating an application that needs charts or a dashboard? FusionCharts is a JavaScript charting solution trusted by over 450,000 developers around the world. They have tons of interactive and animated charts with advanced features like tooltips, drill-down, chart export and zoom. Their charts also work across PCs, Macs, iPads, iPhones and Android devices. You can download a free-trial at:
Go to fusioncharts.com
Sprint.ly has been there from the beginning. Perfect for software teams of 3 or more people, Sprint.ly is the easiest way for managers and developers to track the software development process. You and your team can try Sprint.ly for free, go to www.sprint.ly.
Use the code productpeopletv2013 to get 10% off!
I just released my first downloadable course called Amplification. Creating great content isn't enough; to get it seen by thousands, you need amplification. In the course, I share my experience with viral posts like "This is a web page" and show you real stats from my website. Then I'll share with you the steps for amplifying your posts to bigger audiences.
Go to productpeople.tv/download and get $10 off
Notable quotes
Is the market for self-published books getting saturated right now?
Justin: "In our space (tech, design, dev, bootstrapping) it used to be there were only a few people doing it (Amy Hoy, Chris Guillebeau). Next, there was grassroots people who followed their lead, and came on the scene: Nathan Barry, Sacha Greif, Paul Jarvis. But now it seems like there are a lot of more established people getting in to publishing: Adii Pienaar, Shawn Blanc, Mike McDerment (Freshbooks). Do you think there's too many players in this space now?"
Sacha: "I don't think so. I think maybe it seems that way to us because we're so involved in this space. Although it's true that there are a lot of books coming out now for people like us: books about design, and books about self-publishing; that niche might get saturated soon. But the vast majority of ebooks are about other things: CSS, food... that will never get saturated."
Nathan: "I think there will always be demand to pay $50 or less for high quality content that's really specific to a topic you care about (as a reader). Instead of going through 50 blog posts on the internet, you spend a little bit of money to get the best stuff on that topic in a PDF. I don't think it will become too saturated. We also tend to run in really specific circles on the internet and so when we see something we think: wow the whole internet is talking about this, when in reality it's just your tiny little corner, and 12 people."
Justin: "The hard thing is... if you're already 'in' and you already have an audience, it's easier to say that it's not saturated. Certain niches can definitely get saturated. Rob Walling just commented on his podcast that there's been a big, noticeable increase in the number of people asking him (and other founders) to do interviews for books. If it's true, that there is more saturation, it means that everybody's quality and uniqueness will have to go up - you'll need to offer something that no one else is doing."
Justin Jacksonno47:48EP41: Sacha Greif, Nathan Barry, Paul Jarvis, and Justin Jackson on self-publishinghttp://productpeople.tv/2013/08/28/ep41-sacha-greif-nathan-barry-paul-jarvis-and-justin-jackson-on-self-publishing/
http://productpeople.tv/2013/08/28/ep41-sacha-greif-nathan-barry-paul-jarvis-and-justin-jackson-on-self-publishing/#commentsWed, 28 Aug 2013 09:00:44 +0000http://productpeople.tv/?p=218Paul Jarvis (Everything I Know), Sacha Greif (Discover Meteor), and Nathan Barry (Authority) invited me to host a Self-Publishing Hangout with them this week. It was a great opportunity for me, because I’m about to publish my first “book” (Amplification). Our Google Hangout ended being a 2 hour marathon of us sharing our experience with writing, publishing, and promoting eBooks, as well as answering questions from everybody in the chat room.

In Part 1 we cover choosing a topic, whether you need to be a good writer, writers block, fear and quality!

Sponsors

This show wouldn’t be possible without these great sponsors. When you support them, you support the show!

On September 1st, I’ll be releasing my first downloadable course called Amplification. Creating great content isn’t enough; to get it seen by thousands, you need amplification. I’ll show you my experience with viral posts like “This is a web page” and show you real stats from my website. Then I’ll share with you the steps for amplifying your posts to bigger audiences.

Sprint.ly has been there from the beginning. Perfect for software teams of 3 or more people, Sprint.ly is the easiest way for managers and developers to track the software development process. You and your team can try Sprint.ly for free, go to www.sprint.ly.

Use the code productpeopletv2013 to get 10% off!

Notable quotes

Nathan: “If you try to wait until you’re a great writer, that’s bad. I had someone contact me who read every one of my blog posts. He said in his email: ‘Man, when you started you were a horrible writer. But I could see you getting better each post you wrote.’ I would say: start writing, and use that to get better at writing.”

Paul: “I feel the same way. I don’t think I’m a great writer, but I know that I’m a lot better now than when I started writing. The only way I got better, was by writing. I write every day; I don’t publish work every day (that’s not the point). The more that I sit down and write, the more ideas that I come up with that are worth publishing.”

Sacha: “I didn’t have a fixed amount of words to write every day. I approach writing like design: start with a sketch, low fidelity mockup, high fidelity… every iteration comes close and closer to the real thing. I start with outline of the chapters, and start filling them up. For Discover Meteor, we must have gone through each chapter about 10 times, it was really iterative.”

Show notes

]]>http://productpeople.tv/2013/08/28/ep41-sacha-greif-nathan-barry-paul-jarvis-and-justin-jackson-on-self-publishing/feed/1course,ebook,publishingPaul Jarvis (Everything I Know), Sacha Greif (Discover Meteor), and Nathan Barry (Authority) invited me to host a Self-Publishing Hangout with them this week. It was a great opportunity for me, because I'm about to publish my first "book" (Amplificatio...Paul Jarvis (Everything I Know), Sacha Greif (Discover Meteor), and Nathan Barry (Authority) invited me to host a Self-Publishing Hangout with them this week. It was a great opportunity for me, because I'm about to publish my first "book" (Amplification). Our Google Hangout ended being a 2 hour marathon of us sharing our experience with writing, publishing, and promoting eBooks, as well as answering questions from everybody in the chat room.
In Part 1 we cover choosing a topic, whether you need to be a good writer, writers block, fear and quality!
Sponsors
This show wouldn't be possible without these great sponsors. When you support them, you support the show!
On September 1st, I'll be releasing my first downloadable course called Amplification. Creating great content isn't enough; to get it seen by thousands, you need amplification. I'll show you my experience with viral posts like "This is a web page" and show you real stats from my website. Then I'll share with you the steps for amplifying your posts to bigger audiences.
Go to productpeople.tv/download and get $10 off
Sprint.ly has been there from the beginning. Perfect for software teams of 3 or more people, Sprint.ly is the easiest way for managers and developers to track the software development process. You and your team can try Sprint.ly for free, go to www.sprint.ly.
Use the code productpeopletv2013 to get 10% off!
Notable quotes
Nathan: "If you try to wait until you're a great writer, that's bad. I had someone contact me who read every one of my blog posts. He said in his email: 'Man, when you started you were a horrible writer. But I could see you getting better each post you wrote.' I would say: start writing, and use that to get better at writing."
Paul: "I feel the same way. I don't think I'm a great writer, but I know that I'm a lot better now than when I started writing. The only way I got better, was by writing. I write every day; I don't publish work every day (that's not the point). The more that I sit down and write, the more ideas that I come up with that are worth publishing."
Sacha: "I didn't have a fixed amount of words to write every day. I approach writing like design: start with a sketch, low fidelity mockup, high fidelity... every iteration comes close and closer to the real thing. I start with outline of the chapters, and start filling them up. For Discover Meteor, we must have gone through each chapter about 10 times, it was really iterative."
Show notes
Paul Jarvis: Everything I Know
Sacha Greif: Discover Meteor
Nathan Barry: Authority
Justin Jackson: AmplificationJustin Jacksonno36:07EP40: Allan Branch on leaving LessConf to focus on his producthttp://productpeople.tv/2013/08/21/ep40-allan-branch/
http://productpeople.tv/2013/08/21/ep40-allan-branch/#commentsWed, 21 Aug 2013 09:00:40 +0000http://productpeople.tv/?p=215If you’ve dreamed about building your own product, you’re in the right place. This week the hilarious, talented, and honest Allan Branch joins us to talk about why he’s leaving LessConf behind to focus on LessAccounting.

Sponsors

This show wouldn’t be possible without these great sponsors. When you support them, you support the show!

Sprint.ly has been there from the beginning. Perfect for software teams of 3 or more people, Sprint.ly is the easiest way for managers and developers to track the software development process. You and your team can try Sprint.ly for free, go to www.sprint.ly.

Use the code productpeopletv2013 to get 10% off!

Notable quotes

“LessConf was a fun little hobby that started to take over.”

“With our app, we’re still battling it out for users, and LessConf was becoming a distraction”

“Notoriety in the startup community doesn’t translate into users in the small business.”

“Notoriety and fame and all that bullshit feels good; it’s a disease. It sucks you in… looking at Instagram likes, and who likes stuff, and re-tweets you. If startups aren’t your target marketing, notoriety can be a distraction.”

“Running a conference is like being a bride at a wedding.”

“What about a social network to connect golfing buddies?”

“We both took pay cuts to start LessEverything, because we wanted to build a nest-egg to build products”

“Having a partner makes it better. Steve likes to make my ideas better.”

“A good partner will give you the courage to be more of yourself.”

“The ignorant user is your best customer.”

“There’s no legacy in pixels.”

Show notes

]]>http://productpeople.tv/2013/08/21/ep40-allan-branch/feed/1conference,consultingIf you’ve dreamed about building your own product, you’re in the right place. This week the hilarious, talented, and honest Allan Branch joins us to talk about why he’s leaving LessConf behind to focus on LessAccounting. Sponsors If you’ve dreamed about building your own product, you’re in the right place. This week the hilarious, talented, and honest Allan Branch joins us to talk about why he’s leaving LessConf behind to focus on LessAccounting.
Sponsors
This show wouldn't be possible without these great sponsors. When you support them, you support the show!
Sprint.ly has been there from the beginning. Perfect for software teams of 3 or more people, Sprint.ly is the easiest way for managers and developers to track the software development process. You and your team can try Sprint.ly for free, go to www.sprint.ly.
Use the code productpeopletv2013 to get 10% off!
Notable quotes
"LessConf was a fun little hobby that started to take over."
"With our app, we're still battling it out for users, and LessConf was becoming a distraction"
"Notoriety in the startup community doesn't translate into users in the small business."
"Notoriety and fame and all that bullshit feels good; it's a disease. It sucks you in… looking at Instagram likes, and who likes stuff, and re-tweets you. If startups aren't your target marketing, notoriety can be a distraction."
"Running a conference is like being a bride at a wedding."
"What about a social network to connect golfing buddies?"
"We both took pay cuts to start LessEverything, because we wanted to build a nest-egg to build products"
"Having a partner makes it better. Steve likes to make my ideas better."
"A good partner will give you the courage to be more of yourself."
"The ignorant user is your best customer."
"There's no legacy in pixels."
Show notes
Allan on Twitter
LessConf
LessAccounting
Allan and Steve's books
Massalina Drive
Justin Jacksonno39:36EP39: Spencer Fry part 2http://productpeople.tv/2013/08/14/ep39-spencer-fry-part-2/
http://productpeople.tv/2013/08/14/ep39-spencer-fry-part-2/#commentsWed, 14 Aug 2013 09:00:09 +0000http://productpeople.tv/?p=212Spencer Fry built his first product when he was 19, and now’s building a new product called Uncover. It’s a big risk: it’s an HR product, which is a difficult vertical. Listen to hear how he plans to succeed.

Sponsors

This show wouldn’t be possible without these great sponsors. When you support them, you support the show!

Sprint.ly has been there from the beginning. Perfect for software teams of 3 or more people, Sprint.ly is the easiest way for managers and developers to track the software development process. You and your team can try Sprint.ly for free, go to www.sprint.ly.

Use the code productpeopletv2013 to get 10% off!

Notable quotes

“Uncover gives employers the ability to give perks and rewards to their employees.”

“Companies are too quick to iterate. You have to look at the broader picture. You have to set aside time for bigger wins.”

“Take time away from the everyday grind, to try something big.”

“When do you know when you should throw in the towel? That’s something I don’t like doing. It’s one of the reasons I choose to bootstrap. If your raise money you have to throw in the towel a lot sooner.”

“One criticism of the HR space is that it’s difficult to sell products to that niche.”

“Small companies get their best applicants through referrals and employees.”

“Longterm, what we want to do is educate companies around employee happiness.”

“Sales or die. Sales is important: the internet is saturated with startups. You have to go after customers.”

“You live and die on your potential customer list.”

Show notes

]]>http://productpeople.tv/2013/08/14/ep39-spencer-fry-part-2/feed/0employer,hr,webappSpencer Fry built his first product when he was 19, and now's building a new product called Uncover. It's a big risk: it's an HR product, which is a difficult vertical. Listen to hear how he plans to succeed. Sponsors Spencer Fry built his first product when he was 19, and now's building a new product called Uncover. It's a big risk: it's an HR product, which is a difficult vertical. Listen to hear how he plans to succeed.
Sponsors
This show wouldn't be possible without these great sponsors. When you support them, you support the show!
Sprint.ly has been there from the beginning. Perfect for software teams of 3 or more people, Sprint.ly is the easiest way for managers and developers to track the software development process. You and your team can try Sprint.ly for free, go to www.sprint.ly.
Use the code productpeopletv2013 to get 10% off!
Notable quotes
"Uncover gives employers the ability to give perks and rewards to their employees."
"Companies are too quick to iterate. You have to look at the broader picture. You have to set aside time for bigger wins."
"Take time away from the everyday grind, to try something big."
"When do you know when you should throw in the towel? That's something I don't like doing. It's one of the reasons I choose to bootstrap. If your raise money you have to throw in the towel a lot sooner."
"One criticism of the HR space is that it's difficult to sell products to that niche."
"Small companies get their best applicants through referrals and employees."
"Longterm, what we want to do is educate companies around employee happiness."
"Sales or die. Sales is important: the internet is saturated with startups. You have to go after customers."
"You live and die on your potential customer list."
Show notes
Spencer Fry on Twitter
Spencer Fry's blog
Pros and cons of iterative development
Sales or die
UncoverJustin Jacksonno33:10EP38: If Spencer Fry could go back in time…http://productpeople.tv/2013/08/07/ep38-if-spencer-fry-could-go-back-in-time/
http://productpeople.tv/2013/08/07/ep38-if-spencer-fry-could-go-back-in-time/#commentsWed, 07 Aug 2013 09:00:18 +0000http://productpeople.tv/2013/08/07/ep38-if-spencer-fry-could-go-back-in-time/What were you doing when you were 19? Spencer Fry built his first online product.

Sponsors

This show wouldn’t be possible without these great sponsors. When you support them, you support the show!

Sprint.ly has been there from the beginning. Perfect for software teams of 3 or more people, Sprint.ly is the easiest way for managers and developers to track the software development process. You and your team can try Sprint.ly for free, go to www.sprint.ly.

Use the code productpeopletv2013 to get 10% off!

Notable quotes

“When I was 10 years old, I had really, really high speed internet. All my friends were on dial-up, but I was on Yale’s high speed connection.”

“I started with being really interested in video games, which eventually lead to TypeFrag.”

“How did you figure out quality voice-over-IP when you were 19?”

“For TypeFrag, most of our sales growth came from podcast sponsorship, and video game team sponsorship.”

“90% of a business’ success is marketing and sales.”

“Spend 90% of your time thinking about how you’re going to get users.”

“It seems like people are way too focused on product development and design, and not focused enough on the sales and the marketing. Especially new entrepreneurs.”

“Every time you talk I’m thinking: these are crazy lessons for someone so young to be learning.”

Show notes

]]>http://productpeople.tv/2013/08/07/ep38-if-spencer-fry-could-go-back-in-time/feed/0entrepreneur,marketing,salesWhat were you doing when you were 19? Spencer Fry built his first online product. Sponsors This show wouldn't be possible without these great sponsors. When you support them, you support the show! Sprint.ly has been there from the beginning.What were you doing when you were 19? Spencer Fry built his first online product.
Sponsors
This show wouldn't be possible without these great sponsors. When you support them, you support the show!
Sprint.ly has been there from the beginning. Perfect for software teams of 3 or more people, Sprint.ly is the easiest way for managers and developers to track the software development process. You and your team can try Sprint.ly for free, go to www.sprint.ly.
Use the code productpeopletv2013 to get 10% off!
Notable quotes
"When I was 10 years old, I had really, really high speed internet. All my friends were on dial-up, but I was on Yale's high speed connection."
"I started with being really interested in video games, which eventually lead to TypeFrag."
"How did you figure out quality voice-over-IP when you were 19?"
"For TypeFrag, most of our sales growth came from podcast sponsorship, and video game team sponsorship."
"90% of a business' success is marketing and sales."
"Spend 90% of your time thinking about how you're going to get users."
"It seems like people are way too focused on product development and design, and not focused enough on the sales and the marketing. Especially new entrepreneurs."
"Every time you talk I'm thinking: these are crazy lessons for someone so young to be learning."
Show notes
Spencer Fry on Twitter
Spencer Fry's blog
TypeFragJustin Jacksonno39:23EP37: Dan Norris gets the Claffhttp://productpeople.tv/2013/07/31/ep37-dan-norris-gets-the-claff/
http://productpeople.tv/2013/07/31/ep37-dan-norris-gets-the-claff/#commentsWed, 31 Jul 2013 09:00:11 +0000http://productpeople.tv/?p=204Imagine building a product for a whole year, and then deciding to try something new on a whim. You build it in a weekend, and in 4 days you already have your first paying customer.

Sponsors

This show wouldn’t be possible without these great sponsors. When you support them, you support the show!

Sprint.ly has been there from the beginning. Perfect for software teams of 3 or more people, Sprint.ly is the easiest way for managers and developers to track the software development process. You and your team can try Sprint.ly for free, go to www.sprint.ly.

Use the code productpeopletv2013 to get 10% off!

Notable quotes

“I realized with my first business, that I’d built something that didn’t scale.”

“I also realized, that I don’t want to do sales. I don’t get energy from going out and doing sales.”

“My co-founder calls himself the Claff, which kind of sounds like an STD.”

“Wait a second; are you allowed to swear on your show?”

“There’s something about putting a price on something, and seeing if people will pay you.”

“I don’t know anyone who’s running a software business, who’s started in the last couple of years, who are making a lot of money. I didn’t realize that at first. It takes a long time to build up the product, to where it’s good enough. SaaS takes a long time.”

“Your mailing list is a massive leg up. When I do something now, people find out about it, which is half the battle.”

“Authority is a hugely valuable asset. Do whatever you do best, that will get people the most amount of relevant people aware of what you’re doing.”

“People won’t tell you what they want. I’ve asked people ‘would you pay for this?'”

Show notes

]]>http://productpeople.tv/2013/07/31/ep37-dan-norris-gets-the-claff/feed/8australia,mvp,startup,wordpressImagine building a product for a whole year, and then deciding to try something new on a whim. You build it in a weekend, and in 4 days you already have your first paying customer. - Find out what happens next: this is part 2 with Dan Norris of Inform.Imagine building a product for a whole year, and then deciding to try something new on a whim. You build it in a weekend, and in 4 days you already have your first paying customer.
Find out what happens next: this is part 2 with Dan Norris of Inform.ly and WP Curve.
Sponsors
This show wouldn't be possible without these great sponsors. When you support them, you support the show!
Sprint.ly has been there from the beginning. Perfect for software teams of 3 or more people, Sprint.ly is the easiest way for managers and developers to track the software development process. You and your team can try Sprint.ly for free, go to www.sprint.ly.
Use the code productpeopletv2013 to get 10% off!
Notable quotes
"I realized with my first business, that I'd built something that didn't scale."
"I also realized, that I don't want to do sales. I don't get energy from going out and doing sales."
"My co-founder calls himself the Claff, which kind of sounds like an STD."
"Wait a second; are you allowed to swear on your show?"
"There's something about putting a price on something, and seeing if people will pay you."
"I don't know anyone who's running a software business, who's started in the last couple of years, who are making a lot of money. I didn't realize that at first. It takes a long time to build up the product, to where it's good enough. SaaS takes a long time."
"Your mailing list is a massive leg up. When I do something now, people find out about it, which is half the battle."
"Authority is a hugely valuable asset. Do whatever you do best, that will get people the most amount of relevant people aware of what you're doing."
"People won't tell you what they want. I've asked people 'would you pay for this?'"
Show notes
The Dan Norris
Start now no funding needed
The Claff on TwitterJustin Jacksonno36:54EP36: Dan Norris gave himself 1 year to build a profitable producthttp://productpeople.tv/2013/07/24/ep36-dan-norris-gave-himself-1-year-to-build-a-profitable-product/
http://productpeople.tv/2013/07/24/ep36-dan-norris-gave-himself-1-year-to-build-a-profitable-product/#commentsWed, 24 Jul 2013 09:00:39 +0000http://productpeople.tv/?p=200Imagine this: you sell your web consultancy, and give yourself 1 year to build a product. You decide to do everything by the book: you’re going to validate the idea, and use the lean startup methodology to build it.

Sponsors

This show wouldn’t be possible without these great sponsors. When you support them, you support the show!

Sprint.ly has been there from the beginning. Perfect for software teams of 3 or more people, Sprint.ly is the easiest way for managers and developers to track the software development process. You and your team can try Sprint.ly for free, go to www.sprint.ly.

Use the code productpeopletv2013 to get 10% off!

I also just discovered KnowAds. The hardest part about online advertising is figuring out what works. KnowAds reveals your competitor’s campagins showing you exactly what’s working for them. You get to see their most successful ad copy & ad placements. Go to productpeople.tv/ads and sign-up for an account.

Show notes

]]>http://productpeople.tv/2013/07/24/ep36-dan-norris-gave-himself-1-year-to-build-a-profitable-product/feed/3dan norris,lean,startup,validation,wordpressImagine this: you sell your web consultancy, and give yourself 1 year to build a product. You decide to do everything by the book: you're going to validate the idea, and use the lean startup methodology to build it. - Imagine this: you sell your web consultancy, and give yourself 1 year to build a product. You decide to do everything by the book: you're going to validate the idea, and use the lean startup methodology to build it.
Find out what happens next: this is part 1 with Dan Norris of Inform.ly and WP Curve.
Sponsors
This show wouldn't be possible without these great sponsors. When you support them, you support the show!
Sprint.ly has been there from the beginning. Perfect for software teams of 3 or more people, Sprint.ly is the easiest way for managers and developers to track the software development process. You and your team can try Sprint.ly for free, go to www.sprint.ly.
Use the code productpeopletv2013 to get 10% off!
I also just discovered KnowAds. The hardest part about online advertising is figuring out what works. KnowAds reveals your competitor's campagins showing you exactly what's working for them. You get to see their most successful ad copy & ad placements. Go to productpeople.tv/ads and sign-up for an account.
And finally, if you're trying to set-up an online store, you need to use Shopify. I've tried setting up dozens of online stores for clients, and there are always so many headaches: handling payment gateways, multiple currencies, taxes, shipping rates. Shopify solves all of these problems for you. I want you to go to productpeople.tv/shopify and get a 14 day free trial.
Notable quotes
"You're a full pro with those intros, were you a TV announcer before you started doing podcasts?"
"I try to record my podcasts in the morning, especially when I have a cold, so I sound like Russel Crowe."
"I listened to the Dan Martell episode, do you want me to tell all my stories about being arrested?"
"Oh, you don't know what a bogan is?"
"I started learning web development the day I started by web development business."
"The customer said 'we want a CMS'. I said 'Sure, I can do that', so I went home and googled CMS."
Show notes
The Dan Norris
Web domination podcast
Bogan [Wikipedia]Justin Jacksonno40:52EP35: Noel Tock on building products on WordPresshttp://productpeople.tv/2013/07/17/ep35-noel-tock-on-building-products-on-wordpress/
http://productpeople.tv/2013/07/17/ep35-noel-tock-on-building-products-on-wordpress/#commentsWed, 17 Jul 2013 09:00:03 +0000http://productpeople.tv/?p=197This is part 2 of our interview with Noel Tock. He built a SaaS app on top of WordPress. In part 1 we talked about the thinking behind that, in part 2 we talk about the lessons he’s learned along the way.

Sponsors

This show wouldn’t be possible without these great sponsors. When you support them, you support the show!

Sprint.ly has been there from the beginning. Perfect for software teams of 3 or more people, Sprint.ly is the easiest way for managers and developers to track the software development process. You and your team can try Sprint.ly for free, go to www.sprint.ly.

Use the code productpeopletv2013 to get 10% off!

I also just discovered KnowAds. The hardest part about online advertising is figuring out what works. KnowAds reveals your competitor’s campagins showing you exactly what’s working for them. You get to see their most successful ad copy & ad placements. Go to productpeople.tv/ads and sign-up for an account.

Show notes

]]>http://productpeople.tv/2013/07/17/ep35-noel-tock-on-building-products-on-wordpress/feed/1mvp,product,recurring,saas,wordpress,wordpressappThis is part 2 of our interview with Noel Tock. He built a SaaS app on top of Wordpress. In part 1 we talked about the thinking behind that, in part 2 we talk about the lessons he's learned along the way. Sponsors This is part 2 of our interview with Noel Tock. He built a SaaS app on top of Wordpress. In part 1 we talked about the thinking behind that, in part 2 we talk about the lessons he's learned along the way.
Sponsors
This show wouldn't be possible without these great sponsors. When you support them, you support the show!
Sprint.ly has been there from the beginning. Perfect for software teams of 3 or more people, Sprint.ly is the easiest way for managers and developers to track the software development process. You and your team can try Sprint.ly for free, go to www.sprint.ly.
Use the code productpeopletv2013 to get 10% off!
I also just discovered KnowAds. The hardest part about online advertising is figuring out what works. KnowAds reveals your competitor's campagins showing you exactly what's working for them. You get to see their most successful ad copy & ad placements. Go to productpeople.tv/ads and sign-up for an account.
And finally, if you're trying to set-up an online store, you need to use Shopify. I've tried setting up dozens of online stores for clients, and there are always so many headaches: handling payment gateways, multiple currencies, taxes, shipping rates. Shopify solves all of these problems for you. I want you to go to productpeople.tv/shopify and get a 14 day free trial.
Notable quotes
Classic product myth: "Build and they will come. Just because you have a great product, doesn't mean people will come."
"Our best source for traffic is www.better-restaurant-websites.com"
"The people that come through footer links on our clients' websites convert the best."
"Don't use Bootstrap for your app's design."
Show notes
Noel Tock
Happy Tables
www.better-restaurant-websites.comJustin Jacksonno27:15EP34: Building your app on top of WordPress with Noel Tockhttp://productpeople.tv/2013/07/10/ep34-building-your-app-on-top-of-wordpress-with-noel-tock/
http://productpeople.tv/2013/07/10/ep34-building-your-app-on-top-of-wordpress-with-noel-tock/#commentsWed, 10 Jul 2013 09:00:39 +0000http://productpeople.tv/?p=194If liked our episodes on using WordPress to build your web app’s MVP, you’re going to love this interview with Noel Tock, of HappyTables.com.

Sponsors

This show wouldn’t be possible without these great sponsors. When you support them, you support the show!

Sprint.ly has been there from the beginning. Perfect for software teams of 3 or more people, Sprint.ly is the easiest way for managers and developers to track the software development process. You and your team can try Sprint.ly for free, go to www.sprint.ly.

Use the code productpeopletv2013 to get 10% off!

I also just discovered KnowAds. The hardest part about online advertising is figuring out what works. KnowAds reveals your competitor’s campagins showing you exactly what’s working for them. You get to see their most successful ad copy & ad placements. Go to productpeople.tv/ads and sign-up for an account.

Show notes

]]>http://productpeople.tv/2013/07/10/ep34-building-your-app-on-top-of-wordpress-with-noel-tock/feed/0europe,mvp,webapps,wordpress,wordpressappIf liked our episodes on using Wordpress to build your web app's MVP, you're going to love this interview with Noel Tock, of HappyTables.com. Sponsors This show wouldn't be possible without these great sponsors. When you support them,If liked our episodes on using Wordpress to build your web app's MVP, you're going to love this interview with Noel Tock, of HappyTables.com.
Sponsors
This show wouldn't be possible without these great sponsors. When you support them, you support the show!
Sprint.ly has been there from the beginning. Perfect for software teams of 3 or more people, Sprint.ly is the easiest way for managers and developers to track the software development process. You and your team can try Sprint.ly for free, go to www.sprint.ly.
Use the code productpeopletv2013 to get 10% off!
I also just discovered KnowAds. The hardest part about online advertising is figuring out what works. KnowAds reveals your competitor's campagins showing you exactly what's working for them. You get to see their most successful ad copy & ad placements. Go to productpeople.tv/ads and sign-up for an account.
And finally, if you're trying to set-up an online store, you need to use Shopify. I've tried setting up dozens of online stores for clients, and there are always so many headaches: handling payment gateways, multiple currencies, taxes, shipping rates. Shopify solves all of these problems for you. I want you to go to productpeople.tv/shopify and get a 14 day free trial.
Notable quotes
"You can't build any app on-top of Wordpress. It works really well for apps that are content based."
"Customizing the existing wp-admin is a lot of work."
"For an MVP, Wordpress would work fine. But for something bigger that you want scale, it's probably better to use something (like Ruby on Rails)."
"Now that Wordpress has custom post types, there's way more you can do."
"It doesn't really matter anymore what technology you're using on the backend. The bar's really been raised in terms of what users expect [in the front-end experience]."
"We used to be content when app just did something, Hotmail did email. But now we have higher expectations on how an app [looks and feels]."
"We're trying to understand the users mores, as opposed to what code powers the back-end."
"We launched Happy Tables in February, 2012."
"Most of our traffic is organic traffic."
Show notes
Noel Tock
Happy Tables
RoloPress
Piklist
ClickBankJustin Jacksonno24:57EP33: Jason Calacanis of Inside.com talks about bootstrapping vs fundinghttp://productpeople.tv/2013/07/03/ep33-jason-calacanis-of-inside-com-talks-about-bootstrapping-vs-funding/
http://productpeople.tv/2013/07/03/ep33-jason-calacanis-of-inside-com-talks-about-bootstrapping-vs-funding/#commentsWed, 03 Jul 2013 09:00:16 +0000http://productpeople.tv/?p=188It’s part 2 with Jason Calacanis!

In this episode we explore the question every product person needs to answer: should I bootstrap, or should I get investors?

Sponsors

The reason I’m able to do this show, and offer it to you for free, is that we have great companies that sponsor us.

Sprint.ly has been there from the beginning. Perfect for software teams of 3 or more people, Sprint.ly is the easiest way for managers and developers to track the software development process. You and your team can try Sprint.ly for free, go to www.sprint.ly

I also just discovered KnowAds. The hardest part about online advertising is figuring out what works. KnowAds reveals your competitor’s campagins showing you exactly what’s working for them. You get to see their most successful ad copy & ad placements. Go to productpeople.tv/ads and sign-up for an account.

Notable quotes

“Raise a little of angel funding, prove that there’s product market, and then go out and get second market funding.”

“If Uber doesn’t go into every market, someone else will, but they still have other people popping up in new markets before they get there. So they’re in a race.”

“Raise less money in the beginning, raise more money once you have product market fit.”

JJ: “There are some great products that have grown really fast, and have stayed private and bootstrapped (MailChimp, SurveyMonkey, Valve). Do you think they’re anomalies?”
JC: “There are some people that stay private, and that’s good because they retain their equity. There’s not one way to do this. But some of those companies are 10 year ‘over night’ successes.'”

“Most businesses don’t need venture funding. The truth is, there’s a time for both [bootstrapping and taking venture money].”

“Investors need liquidity. There’s a secondary market for shares today. This really didn’t exist that much before. You used to be forced into an IPO. There’s a concept that (perhaps) venture capitalists would start taking dividends; but it’s more likely that they’ll just sell their shares.”

“Trying to building for the sale is a terrible idea. You want to build for a growing market, a customer that loves you, and a team that loves to build the product. When I was hiring for Inside.com, I realized there’s a lot of developers into our space.”

“Building to sell is a dangerous idea. When people come to me for an angel investment and say ‘This is a natural acquisition target’, I say ‘That’s not what you lead with.’ That’s not why you build it, you build it because you have a better solution.”

“When you’re thinking about these big acquisitions, I encourage people to just drop off 3 zeroes.”

“It turns out, there’s a lot of money in the world. The money is bored. Money wants to be spent! Money is intended to be gambled. These are big numbers, but these are big companies.”

Show notes

]]>http://productpeople.tv/2013/07/03/ep33-jason-calacanis-of-inside-com-talks-about-bootstrapping-vs-funding/feed/0angel,funding,vcIt's part 2 with Jason Calacanis! - In this episode we explore the question every product person needs to answer: should I bootstrap, or should I get investors? Sponsors The reason I'm able to do this show, and offer it to you for free,It's part 2 with Jason Calacanis!
In this episode we explore the question every product person needs to answer: should I bootstrap, or should I get investors?
Sponsors
The reason I'm able to do this show, and offer it to you for free, is that we have great companies that sponsor us.
Sprint.ly has been there from the beginning. Perfect for software teams of 3 or more people, Sprint.ly is the easiest way for managers and developers to track the software development process. You and your team can try Sprint.ly for free, go to www.sprint.ly
I also just discovered KnowAds. The hardest part about online advertising is figuring out what works. KnowAds reveals your competitor's campagins showing you exactly what's working for them. You get to see their most successful ad copy & ad placements. Go to productpeople.tv/ads and sign-up for an account.
And finally, if you're trying to set-up an online store, you need to use Shopify. I've tried setting up dozens of online stores for clients, and there are always so many headaches: handling payment gateways, multiple currencies, taxes, shipping rates. Shopify solves all of these problems for you. I want you to go to productpeople.tv/shopify and get a 14 day free trial.
Notable quotes
"Raise a little of angel funding, prove that there's product market, and then go out and get second market funding."
"If Uber doesn't go into every market, someone else will, but they still have other people popping up in new markets before they get there. So they're in a race."
"Raise less money in the beginning, raise more money once you have product market fit."
JJ: "There are some great products that have grown really fast, and have stayed private and bootstrapped (MailChimp, SurveyMonkey, Valve). Do you think they're anomalies?"
JC: "There are some people that stay private, and that's good because they retain their equity. There's not one way to do this. But some of those companies are 10 year 'over night' successes.'"
"Most businesses don't need venture funding. The truth is, there's a time for both [bootstrapping and taking venture money]."
"Investors need liquidity. There's a secondary market for shares today. This really didn't exist that much before. You used to be forced into an IPO. There's a concept that (perhaps) venture capitalists would start taking dividends; but it's more likely that they'll just sell their shares."
"Trying to building for the sale is a terrible idea. You want to build for a growing market, a customer that loves you, and a team that loves to build the product. When I was hiring for Inside.com, I realized there's a lot of developers into our space."
"Building to sell is a dangerous idea. When people come to me for an angel investment and say 'This is a natural acquisition target', I say 'That's not what you lead with.' That's not why you build it, you build it because you have a better solution."
"When you're thinking about these big acquisitions, I encourage people to just drop off 3 zeroes."
"It turns out, there's a lot of money in the world. The money is bored. Money wants to be spent! Money is intended to be gambled. These are big numbers, but these are big companies."
Show notes
http://twitter.com/jason
http://inside.com
http://www.weblogsinc.com
http://www.prweb.com/releases/2004/10/prweb172213.htmJustin Jacksonno25:21EP32: Jason Calacanis at 300 BAUDhttp://productpeople.tv/2013/06/26/ep32-jason-calacanis-at-300-baud/
http://productpeople.tv/2013/06/26/ep32-jason-calacanis-at-300-baud/#commentsWed, 26 Jun 2013 09:00:09 +0000http://productpeople.tv/?p=182Normally we cover bootstrapped products: people who are self-funding the stuff they build. We do this because I’m naturally drawn to bootstrapped companies.

For this episode I wanted to go into “enemy” territory: I wanted to talk to the VC community. To do that I contacted Jason Calacanis, an angel investor, and the voice of funded startups on his podcast This Week In Startups. This is part 1 where we delved into the human said of Mr. Calacanis – where he came from, and how he got to where he is today.

Sponsors

The reason I’m able to do this show, and offer it to you for free, is that we have great companies that sponsor us.

Sprint.ly has been there from the beginning. Perfect for software teams of 3 or more people, Sprint.ly is the easiest way for managers and developers to track the software development process. You and your team can try Sprint.ly for free, go to www.sprint.ly

We also have 3 new sponsors this month:

Looking for a new job? Mood Media is hiring a Jr. Product Manager.They are looking for an energetic, entrepreneurial technophile who is ready to drive Mood Media’s Interactive product lines in North America forward into the next decade. This person must be a visionary, strategic thinker with a hands-on approach. For more details, visit: productpeople.tv/moodmedia

I also just discovered KnowAds. The hardest part about online advertising is figuring out what works. KnowAds reveals your competitor’s campagins showing you exactly what’s working for them. You get to see their most successful ad copy & ad placements. Go to productpeople.tv/ads and sign-up for an account.

Show notes

]]>http://productpeople.tv/2013/06/26/ep32-jason-calacanis-at-300-baud/feed/1angel,funding,podcaster,startups,twist,vcNormally we cover bootstrapped products: people who are self-funding the stuff they build. We do this because I'm naturally drawn to bootstrapped companies. - For this episode I wanted to go into "enemy" territory: I wanted to talk to the VC community.Normally we cover bootstrapped products: people who are self-funding the stuff they build. We do this because I'm naturally drawn to bootstrapped companies.
For this episode I wanted to go into "enemy" territory: I wanted to talk to the VC community. To do that I contacted Jason Calacanis, an angel investor, and the voice of funded startups on his podcast This Week In Startups. This is part 1 where we delved into the human said of Mr. Calacanis - where he came from, and how he got to where he is today.
Sponsors
The reason I'm able to do this show, and offer it to you for free, is that we have great companies that sponsor us.
Sprint.ly has been there from the beginning. Perfect for software teams of 3 or more people, Sprint.ly is the easiest way for managers and developers to track the software development process. You and your team can try Sprint.ly for free, go to www.sprint.ly
We also have 3 new sponsors this month:
Looking for a new job? Mood Media is hiring a Jr. Product Manager. They are looking for an energetic, entrepreneurial technophile who is ready to drive Mood Media’s Interactive product lines in North America forward into the next decade. This person must be a visionary, strategic thinker with a hands-on approach. For more details, visit: productpeople.tv/moodmedia
I also just discovered KnowAds. The hardest part about online advertising is figuring out what works. KnowAds reveals your competitor's campagins showing you exactly what's working for them. You get to see their most successful ad copy & ad placements. Go to productpeople.tv/ads and sign-up for an account.
And finally, if you're trying to set-up an online store, you need to use Shopify. I've tried setting up dozens of online stores for clients, and there are always so many headaches: handling payment gateways, multiple currencies, taxes, shipping rates. Shopify solves all of these problems for you. I want you to go to productpeople.tv/shopify and get a 14 day free trial.
Notable quotes
"My first business was making copies of Star Wars on BetaMax for my friends."
"I don't think being an entrepreneur is the best mode of existence; but I do think it's important for our kids to see us working hard."
"Show me a great entrepreneur, I'll show you a fucked up relationship with their parents."
"There were these things called BBSes. I had a 300 BAUD modem."
"In college I was making $3.50/hour managing computer systems."
"One of my first jobs was doing LotusNotes scripting."
"When I saw Mosaic, the first browser, I was like: Whoa. When they added images, the internet felt like a magazine."
"People thought that paying bloggers was sacrilegious."
"I thought doing 10 blog posts a day on gadgets was crazy. But we ultimately we ended up doing 40, 50, 60 posts a day."
"Weblogs Inc. was a great product."
"We sold the first podcast ad ever to Volvo. We commercialized it; we saw there was a business opportunity there."
"When people use it, and can't shut up about it, you know you've got a great product."
"I like to tinker, I like to build products. I've had a lot of opportunities to do other stuff, but I like product."
Show notes
http://twitter.com/jason
http://inside.com
http://www.weblogsinc.com
http://www.prweb.com/releases/2004/10/prweb172213.htmJustin Jacksonno33:43EP31: Dan Martell gives us some Clarityhttp://productpeople.tv/2013/06/19/ep31-dan-martell-gives-us-some-clarity/
http://productpeople.tv/2013/06/19/ep31-dan-martell-gives-us-some-clarity/#commentsWed, 19 Jun 2013 09:00:43 +0000http://productpeople.tv/?p=177Dan Martell discovered computers in rehab. After he overcame his problems with drugs, he taught himself to program. From there, he started building businesses. Eventually, he travelled to San Francisco to learn everything he could from the startup scene.

You might recognize his former product: Flowtown, and his current one: Clarity. In this episode Dan shares his story from the beginning, and how he overcame a difficult beginning to build his own products.

Notable quotes

“I got the idea for Clarity because I had people emailing asking me to take me to coffee, needing help. I wanted to help them, but I couldn’t help them. I wished there was a way to get their information, and call them back when I was free. I built it on Twilio, which would proxy my number (so no one found my cell number)”

“It took me 2 days to build that first prototype that worked.”

“I tweeted out: ‘If you need advice on your startup, give me a call'”

“I felt like: this is what the internet is supposed to do!”

How did you know people would pay for it? “Once it was out there, I was getting too many calls. So I put up a paywall. It was crazy; people started paying [big numbers].”

“The world rewards courageous decisions; I honestly believe that.”

“What does a hit look like? Retention. When someone uses it, and keeps using it. Even better: if they also tell other people to use it.”

There’s always this confusion as to what would people would pay for.

“I didn’t want to admit I was building a two-sided marketplace.”

“I don’t need engineers to be more productive, I just need to stop asking them to build stupid stuff that nobody needs.”

“Nobody, listening to this podcast does more customer development than I do.”

“What’s the key to a good customer development interview? DON’T SELL.”

“Getting someone to pay is true customer validation.”

“Once you’ve created and keep a customer, you’ve got a real business.”

“I want to index people’s brains, like Google indexes text.”

“People are listening to this podcast because conversations carry a lot more context.”

Show notes

Premium Sponsors

Sprint.ly

Our premium sponsor is Sprint.ly. Sprint.ly is agile project management software with one goal: to help you ship more stuff. You can try them out for free at www.sprint.ly. You can also thank them on Twitter: @sprintly

Are you frustrated with your current web host provider? A few years ago I was looking to switch from my current cheap host to something more robust: but trying to search online for hosting providers is a nightmare (there’s so much spam in the search results). Then Rob Walling recommended WPengine. I’ve been with them ever since. If you’re looking for dedicated WordPress hosting, that can handle huge traffic spikes (like 40,000 visits in a day), is lightning fast, and has great support I highly recommend them. Click here to get up to 2 months free.

Shout outs

Welcome to our shout-outs section. This is a chance for you to advertise your bootstrapped product, a job opportunity, or your side-project to our audience of product people, entrepreneurs, developers and designers.

Next up: Hover.com. Register a domain with Hover.com and use the promo code “productpeople” (all one word) to get 10% off your order!

]]>http://productpeople.tv/2013/06/19/ep31-dan-martell-gives-us-some-clarity/feed/1advice,dan martell,danmartellDan Martell discovered computers in rehab. After he overcame his problems with drugs, he taught himself to program. From there, he started building businesses. Eventually, he travelled to San Francisco to learn everything he could from the startup scene.Dan Martell discovered computers in rehab. After he overcame his problems with drugs, he taught himself to program. From there, he started building businesses. Eventually, he travelled to San Francisco to learn everything he could from the startup scene.
You might recognize his former product: Flowtown, and his current one: Clarity. In this episode Dan shares his story from the beginning, and how he overcame a difficult beginning to build his own products.
Notable quotes
"I got the idea for Clarity because I had people emailing asking me to take me to coffee, needing help. I wanted to help them, but I couldn't help them. I wished there was a way to get their information, and call them back when I was free. I built it on Twilio, which would proxy my number (so no one found my cell number)"
"It took me 2 days to build that first prototype that worked."
"I tweeted out: 'If you need advice on your startup, give me a call'"
"I felt like: this is what the internet is supposed to do!"
How did you know people would pay for it? "Once it was out there, I was getting too many calls. So I put up a paywall. It was crazy; people started paying [big numbers]."
"The world rewards courageous decisions; I honestly believe that."
"What does a hit look like? Retention. When someone uses it, and keeps using it. Even better: if they also tell other people to use it."
There's always this confusion as to what would people would pay for.
"I didn't want to admit I was building a two-sided marketplace."
"I don't need engineers to be more productive, I just need to stop asking them to build stupid stuff that nobody needs."
"Nobody, listening to this podcast does more customer development than I do."
"What's the key to a good customer development interview? DON'T SELL."
"Getting someone to pay is true customer validation."
"Once you've created and keep a customer, you've got a real business."
"I want to index people's brains, like Google indexes text."
"People are listening to this podcast because conversations carry a lot more context."
"Find 10 people that will pay you money."
"The question is not can you build it it's should you build it?"
Show notes
http://www.danmartell.com/
https://twitter.com/danmartell
https://clarity.fm/#/danmartell
http://www.twilio.com/
http://clarity.fm/customers/raphaelpaulindaigle
http://maplebutter.com/
Premium Sponsors
Sprint.ly
Our premium sponsor is Sprint.ly. Sprint.ly is agile project management software with one goal: to help you ship more stuff. You can try them out for free at www.sprint.ly. You can also thank them on Twitter: @sprintly
WPengine
Are you frustrated with your current web host provider? A few years ago I was looking to switch from my current cheap host to something more robust: but trying to search online for hosting providers is a nightmare (there's so much spam in the search results). Then Rob Walling recommended WPengine. I've been with them ever since. If you're looking for dedicated Wordpress hosting, that can handle huge traffic spikes (like 40,000 visits in a day), is lightning fast, and has great support I highly recommend them. Click here to get up to 2 months free.
Shout outs
Welcome to our shout-outs section. This is a chance for you to advertise your bootstrapped product, a job opportunity, or your side-project to our audience of product people, entrepreneurs, developers and designers.
Shout-out #1: Product People newsletter
Second I'd like to promote our Product People newsletter. You can sign-up (and get product making resources sent directly to your inbox). Go to: wwww.productpeople.tv/newsletter
Shout-out #2: Save 10% on domains at Hover.com
Next up: Hover.com. Register a domain with Hover.com and use the promo code "productpeople" (all one word) to get 10% off your order!Justin Jacksonno41:38EP30: Dan Martell’s story – from rehab to San Franciscohttp://productpeople.tv/2013/06/12/ep30-dan-martells-story-from-rehab-to-san-francisco/
http://productpeople.tv/2013/06/12/ep30-dan-martells-story-from-rehab-to-san-francisco/#commentsWed, 12 Jun 2013 09:00:36 +0000http://productpeople.tv/?p=173Dan Martell discovered computers in rehab. After he overcame his problems with drugs, he taught himself to program. From there, he started building businesses. Eventually, he travelled to San Francisco to learn everything he could from the startup scene.

You might recognize his former product: Flowtown, and his current one: Clarity. In this episode Dan shares his story from the beginning, and how he overcame a difficult beginning to build his own products.

Notable quotes

“I had a hard upbringing, my mother was an alcoholic. I was removed from my home.”

“Built tree forts, when I was 8 or 9, and I would charge the other kids to come play in them”

“I’ve always been into building and selling stuff… so I took to selling drugs.”

“It was in rehab that I discovered computers. I learned to build stuff that wasn’t illegal.”

“A lot of the stuff you learn selling drugs, translates to business acumen.”

“Clarity’s foundation is getting advice from people that have been there before. ”

“You should only get advice from people that have been there before.”

“My uncle was selling roller blades in his basement.”

“As soon as possible, your company needs to make money. If you can get anyone to show up and pay you $1, you’ve made it on the internet.”

“People don’t [charge money for their products], because they’re scared that their product sucks.”

“It took me a few failed attempts before I made my first million.”

“When I was 21, I was hired to work for an oil company in the tar sands. My job title was Solutions Architect.”

“I almost went bankrupt in 6 weeks.”

“I became a millionaire when I was 27.”

“I get 3-4 venture cap firms cold emailing me every week.”

Show notes

Premium Sponsors

Sprint.ly

Our premium sponsor is Sprint.ly. Sprint.ly is agile project management software with one goal: to help you ship more stuff. You can try them out for free at www.sprint.ly. You can also thank them on Twitter: @sprintly

Are you frustrated with your current web host provider? A few years ago I was looking to switch from my current cheap host to something more robust: but trying to search online for hosting providers is a nightmare (there’s so much spam in the search results). Then Rob Walling recommended WPengine. I’ve been with them ever since. If you’re looking for dedicated WordPress hosting, that can handle huge traffic spikes (like 40,000 visits in a day), is lightning fast, and has great support I highly recommend them. Click here to get up to 2 months free.

Shout outs

Welcome to our shout-outs section. This is a chance for you to advertise your bootstrapped product, a job opportunity, or your side-project to our audience of product people, entrepreneurs, developers and designers.

Next up: Hover.com. Register a domain with Hover.com and use the promo code “productpeople” (all one word) to get 10% off your order!

]]>http://productpeople.tv/2013/06/12/ep30-dan-martells-story-from-rehab-to-san-francisco/feed/4marketing,sanfrancisco,startupsDan Martell discovered computers in rehab. After he overcame his problems with drugs, he taught himself to program. From there, he started building businesses. Eventually, he travelled to San Francisco to learn everything he could from the startup scene.Dan Martell discovered computers in rehab. After he overcame his problems with drugs, he taught himself to program. From there, he started building businesses. Eventually, he travelled to San Francisco to learn everything he could from the startup scene.
You might recognize his former product: Flowtown, and his current one: Clarity. In this episode Dan shares his story from the beginning, and how he overcame a difficult beginning to build his own products.
Notable quotes
"I had a hard upbringing, my mother was an alcoholic. I was removed from my home."
"Built tree forts, when I was 8 or 9, and I would charge the other kids to come play in them"
"I've always been into building and selling stuff... so I took to selling drugs."
"It was in rehab that I discovered computers. I learned to build stuff that wasn't illegal."
"A lot of the stuff you learn selling drugs, translates to business acumen."
"Clarity's foundation is getting advice from people that have been there before. "
"You should only get advice from people that have been there before."
"My uncle was selling roller blades in his basement."
"As soon as possible, your company needs to make money. If you can get anyone to show up and pay you $1, you've made it on the internet."
"People don't [charge money for their products], because they're scared that their product sucks."
"It took me a few failed attempts before I made my first million."
"When I was 21, I was hired to work for an oil company in the tar sands. My job title was Solutions Architect."
"I almost went bankrupt in 6 weeks."
"I became a millionaire when I was 27."
"I get 3-4 venture cap firms cold emailing me every week."
Show notes
http://www.danmartell.com/
https://twitter.com/danmartell
https://clarity.fm/#/danmartell
http://maplebutter.com/
Premium Sponsors
Sprint.ly
Our premium sponsor is Sprint.ly. Sprint.ly is agile project management software with one goal: to help you ship more stuff. You can try them out for free at www.sprint.ly. You can also thank them on Twitter: @sprintly
WPengine
Are you frustrated with your current web host provider? A few years ago I was looking to switch from my current cheap host to something more robust: but trying to search online for hosting providers is a nightmare (there's so much spam in the search results). Then Rob Walling recommended WPengine. I've been with them ever since. If you're looking for dedicated Wordpress hosting, that can handle huge traffic spikes (like 40,000 visits in a day), is lightning fast, and has great support I highly recommend them. Click here to get up to 2 months free.
Shout outs
Welcome to our shout-outs section. This is a chance for you to advertise your bootstrapped product, a job opportunity, or your side-project to our audience of product people, entrepreneurs, developers and designers.
Shout-out #1: Product People newsletter
Second I'd like to promote our Product People newsletter. You can sign-up (and get product making resources sent directly to your inbox). Go to: wwww.productpeople.tv/newsletter
Shout-out #2: Save 10% on domains at Hover.com
Next up: Hover.com. Register a domain with Hover.com and use the promo code "productpeople" (all one word) to get 10% off your order!Justin Jacksonno42:33EP29: Cease and desisthttp://productpeople.tv/2013/06/05/ep29-cody-brown/
http://productpeople.tv/2013/06/05/ep29-cody-brown/#commentsWed, 05 Jun 2013 09:00:31 +0000http://productpeople.tv/?p=166Imagine this: you build a product that you’re passionate about. To demonstrate it’s capabilities, you create a demo that attracts the attention of the New York Times legal department; who promptly send you a cease and desist letter. That’s exactly what happened to Cody Brown and his team at ScrollKit.

Highlights

“Scrollkit is a way to create powerful visual stories on the web.”

“We’re trying to bring what you can do in print, to the web.”

“A kid will intuitively understand what to do when you give them some crayons. But if you slid ‘WordPress’ over to them, they’d probably be confused.”

“Our biggest cost is salaries: we’re paying ourselves low ‘founders’ salaries right now. The only other big cost is Heroku.”

“We used ScrollKit to re-create Snowfall in an hour.”

“Time Magazine loved our replica: they invited us to their corporate headquarters.”

Show notes

Premium Sponsors

Sprint.ly

Our premium sponsor is Sprint.ly. Sprint.ly is agile project management software with one goal: to help you ship more stuff. You can try them out for free at www.sprint.ly. You can also thank them on Twitter: @sprintly

Are you frustrated with your current web host provider? A few years ago I was looking to switch from my current cheap host to something more robust: but trying to search online for hosting providers is a nightmare (there’s so much spam in the search results). Then Rob Walling recommended WPengine. I’ve been with them ever since. If you’re looking for dedicated WordPress hosting, that can handle huge traffic spikes (like 40,000 visits in a day), is lightning fast, and has great support I highly recommend them. Click here to get up to 2 months free.

Shout outs

Welcome to our shout-outs section. This is a chance for you to advertise your bootstrapped product, a job opportunity, or your side-project to our audience of product people, entrepreneurs, developers and designers.

Finally: Ting! For our USA listeners, if you go to productpeople.ting.com. Ting is a mobile service that gives you great rates, no overage penalties, and multiple devices on one plan. If you go to productpeople.ting.com you’ll get $25 off most Ting devices or $25 toward Ting service!

]]>http://productpeople.tv/2013/06/05/ep29-cody-brown/feed/0Imagine this: you build a product that you're passionate about. To demonstrate it's capabilities, you create a demo that attracts the attention of the New York Times legal department; who promptly send you a cease and desist letter.Imagine this: you build a product that you're passionate about. To demonstrate it's capabilities, you create a demo that attracts the attention of the New York Times legal department; who promptly send you a cease and desist letter. That's exactly what happened to Cody Brown and his team at ScrollKit.
Highlights
"Scrollkit is a way to create powerful visual stories on the web."
"We're trying to bring what you can do in print, to the web."
"A kid will intuitively understand what to do when you give them some crayons. But if you slid 'Wordpress' over to them, they'd probably be confused."
"Our biggest cost is salaries: we're paying ourselves low 'founders' salaries right now. The only other big cost is Heroku."
"We used ScrollKit to re-create Snowfall in an hour."
"Time Magazine loved our replica: they invited us to their corporate headquarters."
Show notes
ScrollKit
Cody on Twitter
Cody's post on Medium (over 100k views)
ScrollKit story on Hacker News
Cody's personal site
Premium Sponsors
Sprint.ly
Our premium sponsor is Sprint.ly. Sprint.ly is agile project management software with one goal: to help you ship more stuff. You can try them out for free at www.sprint.ly. You can also thank them on Twitter: @sprintly
WPengine
Are you frustrated with your current web host provider? A few years ago I was looking to switch from my current cheap host to something more robust: but trying to search online for hosting providers is a nightmare (there's so much spam in the search results). Then Rob Walling recommended WPengine. I've been with them ever since. If you're looking for dedicated Wordpress hosting, that can handle huge traffic spikes (like 40,000 visits in a day), is lightning fast, and has great support I highly recommend them. Click here to get up to 2 months free.
Shout outs
Welcome to our shout-outs section. This is a chance for you to advertise your bootstrapped product, a job opportunity, or your side-project to our audience of product people, entrepreneurs, developers and designers.
Shout-out #1: Product People newsletter
Second I'd like to promote our Product People newsletter. You can sign-up (and get product making resources sent directly to your inbox). Go to: wwww.productpeople.tv/newsletter
Shout-out #2: Save 10% on domains at Hover.com
Next up: Hover.com. Register a domain with Hover.com and use the promo code "productpeople" (all one word) to get 10% off your order!
Shout-out #3: Get $25 off at Ting
Finally: Ting! For our USA listeners, if you go to productpeople.ting.com. Ting is a mobile service that gives you great rates, no overage penalties, and multiple devices on one plan. If you go to productpeople.ting.com you'll get $25 off most Ting devices or $25 toward Ting service!Justin Jacksonno31:51EP28: Draw your own video gameshttp://productpeople.tv/2013/05/29/ep28-draw-your-own-video-games/
http://productpeople.tv/2013/05/29/ep28-draw-your-own-video-games/#commentsWed, 29 May 2013 09:00:43 +0000http://productpeople.tv/?p=162Hey, let me ask you a question: when you were a kid, after a game of Mario Brothers, did you ever take out a pencil and paper and try to draw your own video game levels? The idea of creating video games from a kid’s imagination is something that today’s guest is working on.

Highlights

“Growing up, playing Mario Bros and Donkey Kong, I would draw my own video game levels.”

“A lot of us that grew up in the 80’s, we’re in our 30’s, we grew up dreaming of creation our own video games.”

“Sometimes the press can pick up on an idea that isn’t really viable as business.”

“We’re seeing other games that have been successful in this niche, like Minecraft.”

Show notes

Premium Sponsors

Sprint.ly

Our premium sponsor is Sprint.ly. Sprint.ly is agile project management software with one goal: to help you ship more stuff. You can try them out for free at www.sprint.ly. You can also thank them on Twitter: @sprintly

Are you frustrated with your current web host provider? A few years ago I was looking to switch from my current cheap host to something more robust: but trying to search online for hosting providers is a nightmare (there’s so much spam in the search results). Then Rob Walling recommended WPengine. I’ve been with them ever since. If you’re looking for dedicated WordPress hosting, that can handle huge traffic spikes (like 40,000 visits in a day), is lightning fast, and has great support I highly recommend them. Click here to get up to 2 months free.

Shout outs

Welcome to our shout-outs section. This is a chance for you to advertise your bootstrapped product, a job opportunity, or your side-project to our audience of product people, entrepreneurs, developers and designers.

Finally: Ting! For our USA listeners, if you go to productpeople.ting.com. Ting is a mobile service that gives you great rates, no overage penalties, and multiple devices on one plan. If you go to productpeople.ting.com you’ll get $25 off most Ting devices or $25 toward Ting service!

Want to be featured in this Shout Section? The cost starts at $39 per episode, and it’s a great way to reach thousands of people. To purchase a shout-out go to: productpeople.tv/shoutout

]]>http://productpeople.tv/2013/05/29/ep28-draw-your-own-video-games/feed/1appstore,games,ios,iphone,kickstarter,videogamesHey, let me ask you a question: when you were a kid, after a game of Mario Brothers, did you ever take out a pencil and paper and try to draw your own video game levels? The idea of creating video games from a kid's imagination is something that today'...Hey, let me ask you a question: when you were a kid, after a game of Mario Brothers, did you ever take out a pencil and paper and try to draw your own video game levels? The idea of creating video games from a kid's imagination is something that today's guest is working on.
Highlights
"Growing up, playing Mario Bros and Donkey Kong, I would draw my own video game levels."
"A lot of us that grew up in the 80's, we're in our 30's, we grew up dreaming of creation our own video games."
"Sometimes the press can pick up on an idea that isn't really viable as business."
"We're seeing other games that have been successful in this niche, like Minecraft."
"Monetizing through education markets is really challenging."
"A Kickstarter campaign is really time consuming."
Why didn't you get Angel funding? "If one person gives you $100,000 it doesn't really validate your product idea. Having 1,000 paying customers validates your idea."
Does Kickstarter give you the contact information for backers? "Yes, there's an export button: but you have to be backed, or your campaign has to be over."
"It doesn't always take a big budget to test out your idea."
"What was that conversation with your wife like?"
Show notes
Kickstarter campaign
Pixel Press: Draw your own video games
Robin Rath on Twitter
Premium Sponsors
Sprint.ly
Our premium sponsor is Sprint.ly. Sprint.ly is agile project management software with one goal: to help you ship more stuff. You can try them out for free at www.sprint.ly. You can also thank them on Twitter: @sprintly
WPengine
Are you frustrated with your current web host provider? A few years ago I was looking to switch from my current cheap host to something more robust: but trying to search online for hosting providers is a nightmare (there's so much spam in the search results). Then Rob Walling recommended WPengine. I've been with them ever since. If you're looking for dedicated Wordpress hosting, that can handle huge traffic spikes (like 40,000 visits in a day), is lightning fast, and has great support I highly recommend them. Click here to get up to 2 months free.
Shout outs
Welcome to our shout-outs section. This is a chance for you to advertise your bootstrapped product, a job opportunity, or your side-project to our audience of product people, entrepreneurs, developers and designers.
Shout-out #1: Product People newsletter
Second I'd like to promote our Product People newsletter. You can sign-up (and get product making resources sent directly to your inbox). Go to: wwww.productpeople.tv/newsletter
Shout-out #2: Save 10% on domains at Hover.com
Next up: Hover.com. Register a domain with Hover.com and use the promo code "productpeople" (all one word) to get 10% off your order!
Shout-out #3: Get $25 off at Ting
Finally: Ting! For our USA listeners, if you go to productpeople.ting.com. Ting is a mobile service that gives you great rates, no overage penalties, and multiple devices on one plan. If you go to productpeople.ting.com you'll get $25 off most Ting devices or $25 toward Ting service!
Want to be featured in this Shout Section? The cost starts at $39 per episode, and it's a great way to reach thousands of people. To purchase a shout-out go to: productpeople.tv/shoutoutJustin Jacksonno28:34EP27: Does Amy Hoy get scared? (part 2)http://productpeople.tv/2013/05/22/ep27-does-amy-hoy-get-scared-part-2/
http://productpeople.tv/2013/05/22/ep27-does-amy-hoy-get-scared-part-2/#commentsWed, 22 May 2013 09:00:56 +0000http://productpeople.tv/?p=159In this episode of Product People: does Amy Hoy still get scared before a launch? How do you choose an audience? And she answers some listener questions.

“To punch above your weight you need to use every single advantage you have. If you try to pick a new market you know nothing about, you’re giving up one of your core advantages.”

“Start serving the audience you already belong to.”

How can people break out of their insecurity? “It’s not a question of ‘who you are’. Do your research: what does it tell you? You don’t have to wonder ‘what do I have to offer that people want?’ Look at your resume.”

“Always be researching customers; never stop. I look wherever people congregate: forums, mailing lists, blog posts, off-hand comments from people on Twitter, support portals, user groups.”

“Don’t walk up and ask people what their problems are; you have to observe.”

Where do you keep your customer research notes? “I use a text file. Simple as that. Don’t use fancy tools.”

“For content marketing, I take what I’ve learned in my research phase, and write posts around that.”

When we sell people things, are we pandering to their narcism? “It’s not narcissistic to think about yourself, and what you need. It’s narcissistic to think that everything’s about you.”

“We don’t have to add new features to compete. New features don’t always make a product better.”

Show notes

Premium Sponsors

Sprint.ly

Our premium sponsor is Sprint.ly. Sprint.ly is agile project management software with one goal: to help you ship more stuff. You can try them out for free at www.sprint.ly. You can also thank them on Twitter: @sprintly

Are you frustrated with your current web host provider? A few years ago I was looking to switch from my current cheap host to something more robust: but trying to search online for hosting providers is a nightmare (there’s so much spam in the search results). Then Rob Walling recommended WPengine. I’ve been with them ever since. If you’re looking for dedicated WordPress hosting, that can handle huge traffic spikes (like 40,000 visits in a day), is lightning fast, and has great support I highly recommend them. Click here to get up to 2 months free.

Shout outs

Welcome to our shout-outs section. This is a chance for you to advertise your bootstrapped product, a job opportunity, or your side-project to our audience of product people, entrepreneurs, developers and designers.

Finally: Ting! For our USA listeners, if you go to productpeople.ting.com. Ting is a mobile service that gives you great rates, no overage penalties, and multiple devices on one plan. If you go to productpeople.ting.com you’ll get $25 off most Ting devices or $25 toward Ting service!

Want to be featured in this Shout Section? The cost starts at $39 per episode, and it’s a great way to reach thousands of people. To purchase a shout-out go to: productpeople.tv/shoutout

]]>http://productpeople.tv/2013/05/22/ep27-does-amy-hoy-get-scared-part-2/feed/1audience,fear,launch,listenersIn this episode of Product People: does Amy Hoy still get scared before a launch? How do you choose an audience? And she answers some listener questions. Highlights "The 30x500 bootcamp has been moved to June 15/16: Why you should do a tiny product f...In this episode of Product People: does Amy Hoy still get scared before a launch? How do you choose an audience? And she answers some listener questions.
Highlights
"The 30x500 bootcamp has been moved to June 15/16: Why you should do a tiny product first"
"So much of what we're doing (with our online courses) is creating community."
"Our Bacon Biz community will be open to everybody: baconbiz.com"
"People have set-up their lives where they let themselves get jerked around by their emotions all the time."
"If you launch something, you're going to get good feedback and bad feedback. No matter what the price is, somebody's going to complain about the price."
"People unconsciously prioritize their feelings as an excuse."
"Sometimes you'll go to someone, because you need some advice, but they'll end up re-enforcing the wrong things. You need to find people that can focus on facts." - Justin
"So many ills are cause by just reacting to feelings."
"What really scares me is karaoke."
"Ask yourself: What logical data is telling me I should be afraid? What's the worst possible thing that could happen?"
"The key, seems to be, to keep trying things. Not everything's a home run, but they keep trying."
"A lot of people's fear is of what people will think of you."
"The easiest way for me to turn this around, is to quit being so self-centred. To keep reminding myself: it's not about me."
"Don't ask: what do I want to build? Ask: what do people need?"
"You can't actually help anyone; you can only help people that want to help themselves."
"You have to help people with something specific, as opposed to being general. You'll
"When people ask me: 'what audience should I serve?' I ask them: 'Well, what are you? If you're a Ruby developer, than serve Ruby developers!' Stick within your own circles."
"You've already chosen your audience by who you're already associating with."
"To punch above your weight you need to use every single advantage you have. If you try to pick a new market you know nothing about, you're giving up one of your core advantages."
"Start serving the audience you already belong to."
How can people break out of their insecurity? "It's not a question of 'who you are'. Do your research: what does it tell you? You don't have to wonder 'what do I have to offer that people want?' Look at your resume."
"Always be researching customers; never stop. I look wherever people congregate: forums, mailing lists, blog posts, off-hand comments from people on Twitter, support portals, user groups."
"Don't walk up and ask people what their problems are; you have to observe."
Where do you keep your customer research notes? "I use a text file. Simple as that. Don't use fancy tools."
"For content marketing, I take what I've learned in my research phase, and write posts around that."
When we sell people things, are we pandering to their narcism? "It's not narcissistic to think about yourself, and what you need. It's narcissistic to think that everything's about you."
"We don't have to add new features to compete. New features don't always make a product better."
Show notes
Amy Hoy
Freckle
BaconBiz
BaconBizConf
30×500 Accelerated Bootcamp, on June 15-16
Stop networking at events
Brennan Dunn
Grumpy Programmer
Rob Wallling
Premium Sponsors
Sprint.ly
Our premium sponsor is Sprint.ly. Sprint.ly is agile project management software with one goal: to help you ship more stuff. You can try them out for free at www.sprint.ly. You can also thank them on Twitter: @sprintly
WPengine
Are you frustrated with your current web host provider? A few years ago I was looking to switch from my current cheap host to something more robust: but trying to search online for hosting providers is a nightmare (there's so much spam in the search results). Then Rob Walling recommended WPengine. I've been with them ever since.Justin Jacksonno50:49EP26: Amy Hoy sells her My Little Ponieshttp://productpeople.tv/2013/05/15/ep26-amy-hoy-sells-her-my-little-ponies/
http://productpeople.tv/2013/05/15/ep26-amy-hoy-sells-her-my-little-ponies/#commentsWed, 15 May 2013 09:00:04 +0000http://productpeople.tv/?p=154Amy Hoy gives a personal interview on her growing up in suburban Maryland, programming on an Apple Iic, selling her My Little Ponies to buy a Power Mac, and how she ended up building her first products.

Highlights

“I started programming when I was 7 year old. At home we had an Apple IIc, and I wrote some programs in BASIC on that.”

“Programming books suck.”

“I grew up in suburban Maryland. It was a wasteland: the only place to get coffee was at a gas station, or one of those sub shops that don’t have a name.”

“Growing up, I didn’t have any business mentors. I was all alone. I learned from books.”

“I was always hustling trying to get money. To buy my Power Mac I sold all of my My Little Ponies.”

“My entire life, everyone told me I couldn’t do stuff.”

“I dropped out of high school in 9th grade and started freelancing.”

“Communicating and teaching are my #1 passions.”

“To me it’s really interesting how people hear about people, and start following people” – Justin

“Twistori ended up making us a lot of money.”

“Working for this startup was like living in Dilbert, but with lots more money and parties.”

Show notes

Premium Sponsors

Sprint.ly

Our premium sponsor is Sprint.ly. Sprint.ly is agile project management software with one goal: to help you ship more stuff. You can try them out for free at www.sprint.ly. You can also thank them on Twitter: @sprintly

Are you frustrated with your current web host provider? A few years ago I was looking to switch from my current cheap host to something more robust: but trying to search online for hosting providers is a nightmare (there’s so much spam in the search results). Then Rob Walling recommended WPengine. I’ve been with them ever since. If you’re looking for dedicated WordPress hosting, that can handle huge traffic spikes (like 40,000 visits in a day), is lightning fast, and has great support I highlight recommend them. Click here to get up to 2 months free.

Shout outs

Welcome to our shout-outs section. This is a chance for you to advertise your bootstrapped product, a job opportunity, or your side-project to our audience of product people, entrepreneurs, developers and designers.

Finally: Ting! For our USA listeners, if you go to productpeople.ting.com. Ting is a mobile service that gives you great rates, no overage penalties, and multiple devices on one plan. If you go to productpeople.ting.com you’ll get $25 off most Ting devices or $25 toward Ting service!

Want to be featured in this Shout Section? The cost starts at $39 per episode, and it’s a great way to reach thousands of people. To purchase a shout-out go to: productpeople.tv/shoutout

]]>http://productpeople.tv/2013/05/15/ep26-amy-hoy-sells-her-my-little-ponies/feed/0amyhoy,bootstrap,bootstrapping,class,ebook,saasAmy Hoy gives a personal interview on her growing up in suburban Maryland, programming on an Apple Iic, selling her My Little Ponies to buy a Power Mac, and how she ended up building her first products. Highlights Amy Hoy gives a personal interview on her growing up in suburban Maryland, programming on an Apple Iic, selling her My Little Ponies to buy a Power Mac, and how she ended up building her first products.
Highlights
"I started programming when I was 7 year old. At home we had an Apple IIc, and I wrote some programs in BASIC on that."
"Programming books suck."
"I grew up in suburban Maryland. It was a wasteland: the only place to get coffee was at a gas station, or one of those sub shops that don't have a name."
"Growing up, I didn't have any business mentors. I was all alone. I learned from books."
"I was always hustling trying to get money. To buy my Power Mac I sold all of my My Little Ponies."
"My entire life, everyone told me I couldn't do stuff."
"I dropped out of high school in 9th grade and started freelancing."
"Communicating and teaching are my #1 passions."
"To me it's really interesting how people hear about people, and start following people" - Justin
"Twistori ended up making us a lot of money."
"Working for this startup was like living in Dilbert, but with lots more money and parties."
"It took about 1-2 days a week, for 3 months to build Freckle."
"I remember hearing about the 30x500 formula, and thinking: 'Whoa! That's doable'" - Justin
"We're doing a 30x500 bootcamp on June 9-10. The cost will be $1,550."
Show notes
Amy Hoy
Thomhas Fuchs
Freckle
The Daily Mac
CBC Television (Venture)
Kids on the Internet
Basecamp
Color Wars
We feel fine
Twistori
Limewire
Javascript Performance Rocks
30x500
Premium Sponsors
Sprint.ly
Our premium sponsor is Sprint.ly. Sprint.ly is agile project management software with one goal: to help you ship more stuff. You can try them out for free at www.sprint.ly. You can also thank them on Twitter: @sprintly
WPengine
Are you frustrated with your current web host provider? A few years ago I was looking to switch from my current cheap host to something more robust: but trying to search online for hosting providers is a nightmare (there's so much spam in the search results). Then Rob Walling recommended WPengine. I've been with them ever since. If you're looking for dedicated Wordpress hosting, that can handle huge traffic spikes (like 40,000 visits in a day), is lightning fast, and has great support I highlight recommend them. Click here to get up to 2 months free.
Shout outs
Welcome to our shout-outs section. This is a chance for you to advertise your bootstrapped product, a job opportunity, or your side-project to our audience of product people, entrepreneurs, developers and designers.
Shout-out #1: Product People newsletter
Second I'd like to promote our Product People newsletter. You can sign-up (and get product making resources sent directly to your inbox). Go to: wwww.productpeople.tv/newsletter
Shout-out #2: Save 10% on domains at Hover.com
Next up: Hover.com. Register a domain with Hover.com and use the promo code "productpeople" (all one word) to get 10% off your order!
Shout-out #3: Get $25 off at Ting
Finally: Ting! For our USA listeners, if you go to productpeople.ting.com. Ting is a mobile service that gives you great rates, no overage penalties, and multiple devices on one plan. If you go to productpeople.ting.com you'll get $25 off most Ting devices or $25 toward Ting service!
Want to be featured in this Shout Section? The cost starts at $39 per episode, and it's a great way to reach thousands of people. To purchase a shout-out go to: productpeople.tv/shoutout
Photo courtesy of Webstock: http://www.flickr.com/photos/webstock06/6885525943/in/photostream/Justin Jacksonno51:57EP25: Hiten Shah “Make your idea a reality” (part 2)http://productpeople.tv/2013/05/08/ep25-hiten-shah-part-2/
http://productpeople.tv/2013/05/08/ep25-hiten-shah-part-2/#commentsWed, 08 May 2013 09:00:59 +0000http://productpeople.tv/?p=151Hey Product People! What’s your process for finding an idea that people love? How do you take your initial hunch for an idea, and make it a reality? What is a funnel? Hiten Shah from Kissmetrics is back to answer these questions and more!

Highlights

“Making human connections is the most important thing in any startup.”

“You need some sound reasoning behind why you’re building your product. It’s a balance of having a vision AND taking all the customer inputs you can find to make sure that your vision can be a reality.

“Study great product people.”

“You have to have an unbiased curiosity; like a method actor. You take off your shoes, and go find that other person’s shoes and start walking in them. You start walking, acting and observing like them.”

“Get unbiased facts about your customers. Know them better than they know themselves.”

“We discovered that building a funnel in Google Analytics is painful. And so we started thinking: how can we take the pain out of that?”

“One of the best things about going to industry conferences is learning about your potential customers. It’s full on anthropology!”

“The creation of the product is a big social experiment. As you understand people, you can ask: how can I save them time, make money or save money?”

“Any step by step process that exists in life, has drop-off. And to me, what a funnel allows you to do is figure out that drop-off. It helps you identify where your problems are.”

“One of the key things we’re learning is that you need to build an audience before you build your product. Build your audience not for marketing, but for learning.”

“Our listeners tell us that building and audience is way scarier than building a product.” – Justin Jackson

“Ask these questions: 1) Who is it I’m trying to reach? 2) Where do they hang out? 3) How can I reach them there?”

“In today’s world you should be able to get people paying right away. If you’ve spent a year, and you don’t have anyone willing to pay you, it’s likely they’ll never pay you.”

“An idea is a solution to a problem. What problem does that idea solve? My suggestion to people is asking: how do you know that a lot of other people have this problem?”

Show notes

Premium Sponsors

Sprint.ly

Our premium sponsor is Sprint.ly. Sprint.ly is agile project management software with one goal: to help you ship more stuff. You can try them out for free at www.sprint.ly. You can also thank them on Twitter: @sprintly

Are you frustrated with your current web host provider? A few years ago I was looking to switch from my current cheap host to something more robust: but trying to search online for hosting providers is a nightmare (there’s so much spam in the search results). Then Rob Walling recommended WPengine. I’ve been with them ever since. If you’re looking for dedicated WordPress hosting, that can handle huge traffic spikes (like 40,000 visits in a day), is lightning fast, and has great support I highlight recommend them. Click here to get up to 2 months free.

Shout outs

Welcome to our shout-outs section. This is a chance for you to advertise your bootstrapped product, a job opportunity, or your side-project to our audience of product people, entrepreneurs, developers and designers.

Finally: Ting! For our USA listeners, if you go to productpeople.ting.com. Ting is a mobile service that gives you great rates, no overage penalties, and multiple devices on one plan. If you go to productpeople.ting.com you’ll get $25 off most Ting devices or $25 toward Ting service!

Want to be featured in this Shout Section? The cost starts at $39 per episode, and it’s a great way to reach thousands of people. To purchase a shout-out go to: productpeople.tv/shoutout

]]>http://productpeople.tv/2013/05/08/ep25-hiten-shah-part-2/feed/1kissmetrics,metrics,startupHey Product People! What's your process for finding an idea that people love? How do you take your initial hunch for an idea, and make it a reality? What is a funnel? Hiten Shah from Kissmetrics is back to answer these questions and more! Highlights Hey Product People! What's your process for finding an idea that people love? How do you take your initial hunch for an idea, and make it a reality? What is a funnel? Hiten Shah from Kissmetrics is back to answer these questions and more!
Highlights
"Making human connections is the most important thing in any startup."
"You need some sound reasoning behind why you're building your product. It's a balance of having a vision AND taking all the customer inputs you can find to make sure that your vision can be a reality.
"Study great product people."
"You have to have an unbiased curiosity; like a method actor. You take off your shoes, and go find that other person's shoes and start walking in them. You start walking, acting and observing like them."
"Get unbiased facts about your customers. Know them better than they know themselves."
"We discovered that building a funnel in Google Analytics is painful. And so we started thinking: how can we take the pain out of that?"
"One of the best things about going to industry conferences is learning about your potential customers. It's full on anthropology!"
"The creation of the product is a big social experiment. As you understand people, you can ask: how can I save them time, make money or save money?"
"Any step by step process that exists in life, has drop-off. And to me, what a funnel allows you to do is figure out that drop-off. It helps you identify where your problems are."
"One of the key things we're learning is that you need to build an audience before you build your product. Build your audience not for marketing, but for learning."
"Our listeners tell us that building and audience is way scarier than building a product." - Justin Jackson
"Ask these questions: 1) Who is it I'm trying to reach? 2) Where do they hang out? 3) How can I reach them there?"
"In today's world you should be able to get people paying right away. If you've spent a year, and you don't have anyone willing to pay you, it's likely they'll never pay you."
"An idea is a solution to a problem. What problem does that idea solve? My suggestion to people is asking: how do you know that a lot of other people have this problem?"
Show notes
Hiten on Twitter
Hitenism
KISSmetrics
Crazy Egg
Derek Sivers - if it's not a hit, switch
Premium Sponsors
Sprint.ly
Our premium sponsor is Sprint.ly. Sprint.ly is agile project management software with one goal: to help you ship more stuff. You can try them out for free at www.sprint.ly. You can also thank them on Twitter: @sprintly
WPengine
Are you frustrated with your current web host provider? A few years ago I was looking to switch from my current cheap host to something more robust: but trying to search online for hosting providers is a nightmare (there's so much spam in the search results). Then Rob Walling recommended WPengine. I've been with them ever since. If you're looking for dedicated Wordpress hosting, that can handle huge traffic spikes (like 40,000 visits in a day), is lightning fast, and has great support I highlight recommend them. Click here to get up to 2 months free.
Shout outs
Welcome to our shout-outs section. This is a chance for you to advertise your bootstrapped product, a job opportunity, or your side-project to our audience of product people, entrepreneurs, developers and designers.
Shout-out #1: Espree at savebusinesstime.com
SaveBusinessTime.com is a curated site featuring the Best Business Software to build and grow your start up. Go to savebusinesstime.com
Shout-out #2: Justin Jackson's book - Product People Secrets
I'm writing a book called "Product People Secrets", you can find out more by going to productpeople.tv/book
I've interviewed great product people like Jason Fried, Patio11 (Patrick McKenzie), Brennan Dunn, Nathan Barry and Rob Walling.
Right now I'm writing a book that will feature their secrets: the techniques, beliefs,Justin Jacksonno37:09EP24: Hiten Shah – “Make things that people love”http://productpeople.tv/2013/05/01/ep24-hiten-shah-make-things-that-people-love/
http://productpeople.tv/2013/05/01/ep24-hiten-shah-make-things-that-people-love/#commentsWed, 01 May 2013 09:00:46 +0000http://productpeople.tv/?p=146Can you build a healthy software business when you don’t know how to code? Hiten Shah is on the show today. He and his co-founder Neil Patel, have built two successful SaaS apps: CrazyEgg, and Kissmetrics.

Today you’ll hear Hiten’s secret to being a successful entrepreneur.

Highlights

“I don’t know how to ‘feel’ like an entrepreneur. To me entrepreneurship isn’t a feeling.”

“When you create something, out of nothing, and somebody consumes it and loves it – that’s entrepreneurship.”

“The people that get stuck… they don’t bother to figure out what it is (that they can make) that people will love.”

“To be an entrepreneur you have to build things, and people have to love them.”

“Almost any problem you see in a company boils down to people and product.”

“It’s hard to manufacture genuine customer appreciation.”

“As the creators of things, the people part is huge. You need to ask: ‘how do you humanize a product’?”

“CrazyEgg was 1 of 10 things we tried; and it was the one that resonated the most with people.”

Show notes

Sponsors

Our premium sponsor is Sprint.ly. Sprint.ly is agile project management software with one goal: to help you ship more stuff. You can try them out for free at www.sprint.ly. You can also thank them on Twitter: @sprintly

Shout outs

Welcome to our shout-outs section. This is a chance for you to advertise your bootstrapped product, a job opportunity, or your side-project to our audience of product people, entrepreneurs, developers and designers.

Jon says: “Google Adwords can be a good way to drive traffic to a smoke test. I am a PPC Analyst offering to help Lean Start-Ups for free. With the customer segment and value proposition for a start-up idea I will create a PPC campaign and email it to them.”

Finally: Ting! For our USA listeners, if you go to productpeople.ting.com. Ting is a mobile service that gives you great rates, no overage penalties, and multiple devices on one plan. If you go to productpeople.ting.com you’ll get $25 off most Ting devices or $25 toward Ting service!

Want to be featured in this Shout Section? The cost starts at $39 per episode, and it’s a great way to reach thousands of people. To purchase a shout-out go to: productpeople.tv/shoutout

]]>http://productpeople.tv/2013/05/01/ep24-hiten-shah-make-things-that-people-love/feed/0entrepreneur,hiten,metrics,shah,startupsCan you build a healthy software business when you don't know how to code? Hiten Shah is on the show today. He and his co-founder Neil Patel, have built two successful SaaS apps: CrazyEgg, and Kissmetrics. - Can you build a healthy software business when you don't know how to code? Hiten Shah is on the show today. He and his co-founder Neil Patel, have built two successful SaaS apps: CrazyEgg, and Kissmetrics.
Today you'll hear Hiten's secret to being a successful entrepreneur.
Highlights
"I don't know how to 'feel' like an entrepreneur. To me entrepreneurship isn't a feeling."
"When you create something, out of nothing, and somebody consumes it and loves it - that's entrepreneurship."
"The people that get stuck… they don't bother to figure out what it is (that they can make) that people will love."
"To be an entrepreneur you have to build things, and people have to love them."
"Almost any problem you see in a company boils down to people and product."
"It's hard to manufacture genuine customer appreciation."
"As the creators of things, the people part is huge. You need to ask: 'how do you humanize a product'?"
"CrazyEgg was 1 of 10 things we tried; and it was the one that resonated the most with people."
Show notes
Hiten on Twitter
Hitenism
KISSmetrics
Crazy Egg
Sponsors
Our premium sponsor is Sprint.ly. Sprint.ly is agile project management software with one goal: to help you ship more stuff. You can try them out for free at www.sprint.ly. You can also thank them on Twitter: @sprintly
Shout outs
Welcome to our shout-outs section. This is a chance for you to advertise your bootstrapped product, a job opportunity, or your side-project to our audience of product people, entrepreneurs, developers and designers.
Shout-out #1: Jon Davis of doihavesomething.com
Jon says: "Google Adwords can be a good way to drive traffic to a smoke test. I am a PPC Analyst offering to help Lean Start-Ups for free. With the customer segment and value proposition for a start-up idea I will create a PPC campaign and email it to them."
Go to doihavesomething.com
Shout-out #2: Justin Jackson's book - Product People Secrets
I'm writing a book called "Product People Secrets", you can find out more by going to productpeople.tv/book
I've interviewed great product people like Jason Fried, Patio11 (Patrick McKenzie), Brennan Dunn, Nathan Barry and Rob Walling.
Right now I'm writing a book that will feature their secrets: the techniques, beliefs, and habits they used to launch successful products.
You can sign-up at productpeople.tv/book and get a sample chapter as well as a chance to win a deluxe package when the book comes out.
Shout-out #3: Product People newsletter
Second I'd like to promote our Product People newsletter. You can sign-up (and get product making resources sent directly to your inbox). Go to: wwww.productpeople.tv/newsletter
Shout-out #4: Save 10% on domains at Hover.com
Next up: Hover.com. Register a domain with Hover.com and use the promo code "productpeople" (all one word) to get 10% off your order!
Shout-out #5: Get $25 off at Ting
Finally: Ting! For our USA listeners, if you go to productpeople.ting.com. Ting is a mobile service that gives you great rates, no overage penalties, and multiple devices on one plan. If you go to productpeople.ting.com you'll get $25 off most Ting devices or $25 toward Ting service!
Want to be featured in this Shout Section? The cost starts at $39 per episode, and it's a great way to reach thousands of people. To purchase a shout-out go to: productpeople.tv/shoutoutJustin Jacksonno38:52EP23: Paul Farnell, how does growth happen with a SaaS startup?http://productpeople.tv/2013/04/24/ep23-paul-farnell-how-does-growth-happen-with-a-saas-startup/
http://productpeople.tv/2013/04/24/ep23-paul-farnell-how-does-growth-happen-with-a-saas-startup/#commentsWed, 24 Apr 2013 09:00:37 +0000http://productpeople.tv/?p=142On the show today is one of the best bootstrappers in the business: Paul Farnell of Litmus.com joins me and shares some great stories.

Highlights

“It felt magical to send an email to a random address, and then showing screenshots of the HTML email design. It was a magical thing when we got it working.”

“We found a technical challenge in automating Lotus Notes 7 on an old version of Windows, and then delivering that result to a beautiful Rails app”

“There are a lot of business opportunities in that stuff that people just grind through on a daily basis. Think Stripe, Litmus, etc…” – Justin Jackson

“If you look at our curve of revenue, it starts very slowly for the first 2.5 years, and then gradually picks up pace in the last year or two.”

“2.5 years in we were well under $1 million in revenue a year, probably $200,000-$300,000 in revenue per year. At 2.5 years we had about 500 users. Now we have 100,000 users (7 years in).”

“When we switched from Euros to American dollars, that week we saw a huge increase in sales.”

“How come America still seems to be the place where web apps thrive?”

“The environment in America is different than Europe. There are bigger entrepreneurial hubs.”

“In the early days, one of the things that set us apart was the designed of the software. I’m not sure how replicable this would be now.”

“We’re a company that has side-projects: we build other apps that (if successful) we roll into our main product.”

Show notes

Sponsors

Our premium sponsor is Sprint.ly. Sprint.ly is agile project management software with one goal: to help you ship more stuff. You can try them out for free at www.sprint.ly. You can also thank them on Twitter: @sprintly

Shout outs

Welcome to our shout-outs section. This is a chance for you to advertise your bootstrapped product, a job opportunity, or your side-project to our audience of product people, entrepreneurs, developers and designers.

Finally: Ting! For our USA listeners, if you go to productpeople.ting.com. Ting is a mobile service that gives you great rates, no overage penalties, and multiple devices on one plan. If you go to productpeople.ting.com you’ll get $25 off most Ting devices or $25 toward Ting service!

Want to be featured in this Shout Section? The cost starts at $39 per episode, and it’s a great way to reach thousands of people. To purchase a shout-out go to: productpeople.tv/shoutout

]]>http://productpeople.tv/2013/04/24/ep23-paul-farnell-how-does-growth-happen-with-a-saas-startup/feed/0app,bootstrapping,boston,email,saas,uk,usaOn the show today is one of the best bootstrappers in the business: Paul Farnell of Litmus.com joins me and shares some great stories. Highlights "It felt magical to send an email to a random address, and then showing screenshots of the HTML email de...On the show today is one of the best bootstrappers in the business: Paul Farnell of Litmus.com joins me and shares some great stories.
Highlights
"It felt magical to send an email to a random address, and then showing screenshots of the HTML email design. It was a magical thing when we got it working."
"We found a technical challenge in automating Lotus Notes 7 on an old version of Windows, and then delivering that result to a beautiful Rails app"
"There are a lot of business opportunities in that stuff that people just grind through on a daily basis. Think Stripe, Litmus, etc…" - Justin Jackson
"If you look at our curve of revenue, it starts very slowly for the first 2.5 years, and then gradually picks up pace in the last year or two."
"2.5 years in we were well under $1 million in revenue a year, probably $200,000-$300,000 in revenue per year. At 2.5 years we had about 500 users. Now we have 100,000 users (7 years in)."
"When we switched from Euros to American dollars, that week we saw a huge increase in sales."
"How come America still seems to be the place where web apps thrive?"
"The environment in America is different than Europe. There are bigger entrepreneurial hubs."
"In the early days, one of the things that set us apart was the designed of the software. I'm not sure how replicable this would be now."
"We're a company that has side-projects: we build other apps that (if successful) we roll into our main product."
Show notes
Paul on Twitter
Paul's blog posts on Litmus
Peanut Software archived page
Paul's presentation at FOWD
Sponsors
Our premium sponsor is Sprint.ly. Sprint.ly is agile project management software with one goal: to help you ship more stuff. You can try them out for free at www.sprint.ly. You can also thank them on Twitter: @sprintly
Shout outs
Welcome to our shout-outs section. This is a chance for you to advertise your bootstrapped product, a job opportunity, or your side-project to our audience of product people, entrepreneurs, developers and designers.
Shout-out #1: Justin Jackson's book - Product People Secrets
I'm writing a book called "Product People Secrets", you can find out more by going to productpeople.tv/book
I've interviewed great product people like Jason Fried, Patio11 (Patrick McKenzie), Brennan Dunn, Nathan Barry and Rob Walling.
Right now I'm writing a book that will feature their secrets: the techniques, beliefs, and habits they used to launch successful products.
You can sign-up at productpeople.tv/book and get a sample chapter as well as a chance to win a deluxe package when the book comes out.
Shout-out #2: Product People newsletter
Second I'd like to promote our Product People newsletter. You can sign-up (and get product making resources sent directly to your inbox). Go to: wwww.productpeople.tv/newsletter
Shout-out #3: Save 10% on domains at Hover.com
Next up: Hover.com. Register a domain with Hover.com and use the promo code "productpeople" (all one word) to get 10% off your order!
Shout-out #4: Get $25 off at Ting
Finally: Ting! For our USA listeners, if you go to productpeople.ting.com. Ting is a mobile service that gives you great rates, no overage penalties, and multiple devices on one plan. If you go to productpeople.ting.com you'll get $25 off most Ting devices or $25 toward Ting service!
Want to be featured in this Shout Section? The cost starts at $39 per episode, and it's a great way to reach thousands of people. To purchase a shout-out go to: productpeople.tv/shoutoutJustin Jacksonno35:33EP22: Paul Farnell of Litmus on building a startup in a college dorm (part 1)http://productpeople.tv/2013/04/17/ep22-paul-farnell-of-litmus-on-building-a-startup-in-a-college-dorm-part-1/
http://productpeople.tv/2013/04/17/ep22-paul-farnell-of-litmus-on-building-a-startup-in-a-college-dorm-part-1/#commentsWed, 17 Apr 2013 09:00:19 +0000http://productpeople.tv/?p=136On the show today is one of the best bootstrappers in the business: Paul Farnell of Litmus.com joins me and shares some great stories.

Highlights

“My parents didn’t want me to have a games console; they wanted something that I could create things on. My first computer was an Amiga.”

“I was inspired by my dad. I started publishing a magazine myself, and distributing it in my middle-school. We even sold annual subscriptions! (mostly to teachers, because they had more money)”

“When I was 12-13 years old, I started building different software products. The first was “Instant Theme Creator”. It sold for $19 (although it was always advertised for $29). It was listed on Download.com”

“I’ve always liked the validation of someone finding enough value in something that I built they were willing to pay for it. I didn’t want to just make a magazine that people would read, I wanted to make”

“There are so many hacks that we technical people do every day. We don’t always think that if we could create systems for other people; make these hacks into products” – Justin Jackson

[Did you enjoy business school?] “No. I didn’t enjoy the courses (or find it applicable). But it was time well spent: because I had the freedom to build Litmus.”

“I was so impressed with the design, usability of 37signals.”

“I built the first version of Litmus in a weekend. It was initially called SiteVista.com. It was running a couple of old desktop machines in my dorm, on the college’s internet.”

“It was incredibly exciting to see people using the product. You would literally see customers using the product, because they were testing web pages on the screens underneath my desk.”

“It did cause some trouble: my girlfriend would get woken up by the machines under my desk.”

“We programmed the original app in VB script.”

“We launched with under 100 people.”

Show notes

Sponsors

Our premium sponsor is Sprint.ly. Sprint.ly is agile project management software with one goal: to help you ship more stuff. You can try them out for free at www.sprint.ly. You can also thank them on Twitter: @sprintly

Shout outs

Welcome to our shout-outs section. This is a chance for you to advertise your bootstrapped product, a job opportunity, or your side-project to our audience of product people, entrepreneurs, developers and designers.

Finally: Ting! For our USA listeners, if you go to productpeople.ting.com. Ting is a mobile service that gives you great rates, no overage penalties, and multiple devices on one plan. If you go to productpeople.ting.com you’ll get $25 off most Ting devices or $25 toward Ting service!

Want to be featured in this Shout Section? The cost starts at $39 per episode, and it’s a great way to reach thousands of people. To purchase a shout-out go to: productpeople.tv/shoutout

]]>http://productpeople.tv/2013/04/17/ep22-paul-farnell-of-litmus-on-building-a-startup-in-a-college-dorm-part-1/feed/0bootstrap,bootstrapping,startupOn the show today is one of the best bootstrappers in the business: Paul Farnell of Litmus.com joins me and shares some great stories. Highlights "My parents didn't want me to have a games console; they wanted something that I could create things on.On the show today is one of the best bootstrappers in the business: Paul Farnell of Litmus.com joins me and shares some great stories.
Highlights
"My parents didn't want me to have a games console; they wanted something that I could create things on. My first computer was an Amiga."
"I was inspired by my dad. I started publishing a magazine myself, and distributing it in my middle-school. We even sold annual subscriptions! (mostly to teachers, because they had more money)"
"When I was 12-13 years old, I started building different software products. The first was "Instant Theme Creator". It sold for $19 (although it was always advertised for $29). It was listed on Download.com"
"I've always liked the validation of someone finding enough value in something that I built they were willing to pay for it. I didn't want to just make a magazine that people would read, I wanted to make"
"There are so many hacks that we technical people do every day. We don't always think that if we could create systems for other people; make these hacks into products" - Justin Jackson
[Did you enjoy business school?] "No. I didn't enjoy the courses (or find it applicable). But it was time well spent: because I had the freedom to build Litmus."
"I was so impressed with the design, usability of 37signals."
"I built the first version of Litmus in a weekend. It was initially called SiteVista.com. It was running a couple of old desktop machines in my dorm, on the college's internet."
"It was incredibly exciting to see people using the product. You would literally see customers using the product, because they were testing web pages on the screens underneath my desk."
"It did cause some trouble: my girlfriend would get woken up by the machines under my desk."
"We programmed the original app in VB script."
"We launched with under 100 people."
Show notes
Paul on Twitter
Paul's blog posts on Litmus
Peanut Software archived page
Paul's presentation at FOWD
Sponsors
Our premium sponsor is Sprint.ly. Sprint.ly is agile project management software with one goal: to help you ship more stuff. You can try them out for free at www.sprint.ly. You can also thank them on Twitter: @sprintly
Shout outs
Welcome to our shout-outs section. This is a chance for you to advertise your bootstrapped product, a job opportunity, or your side-project to our audience of product people, entrepreneurs, developers and designers.
Shout-out #1: Kyle Fox's blog post on product management
The first I'd like to give a shout-out to Kyle Fox who's written a great blog post called "Multi-tasking is the heart of product management" Go to kylefox.ca to see that!
Shout-out #2: Product People newsletter
Second I'd like to promote our Product People newsletter. You can sign-up (and get product making resources sent directly to your inbox). Go to: wwww.productpeople.tv/newsletter
Shout-out #3: Save 10% on domains at Hover.com
Next up: Hover.com. Register a domain with Hover.com and use the promo code "productpeople" (all one word) to get 10% off your order!
Shout-out #4: Get $25 off at Ting
Finally: Ting! For our USA listeners, if you go to productpeople.ting.com. Ting is a mobile service that gives you great rates, no overage penalties, and multiple devices on one plan. If you go to productpeople.ting.com you'll get $25 off most Ting devices or $25 toward Ting service!
Want to be featured in this Shout Section? The cost starts at $39 per episode, and it's a great way to reach thousands of people. To purchase a shout-out go to: productpeople.tv/shoutoutJustin Jacksonno46:07EP21: John Saddington on deadlines, partners, ugly babies and warning bells (part 2)http://productpeople.tv/2013/04/10/ep21-john-saddington-on-deadlines-partners-ugly-babies-and-warning-bells-part-2/
http://productpeople.tv/2013/04/10/ep21-john-saddington-on-deadlines-partners-ugly-babies-and-warning-bells-part-2/#commentsWed, 10 Apr 2013 09:00:30 +0000http://productpeople.tv/?p=132This week we have part 2 of our interview with John Saddington that literally sent warning bells blaring through the 8Bit office. We also hear about his new Kickstarter campaign: Pressgram (an iOS app that allows you to take filtered photos, and publish them to your WordPress blog).

Highlights

“Without deadlines you just never know if there’s progress, or to measure momentum.”

“Without personal deadlines you can be slaving away on something and never launch.”

“When you have partners you will have more fun, you will make more money, and you will have more margin than without.”

“Unless you’re a magical unicorn that can do all things, you’re probably going to be a specialist (a designer, business person, developer). Startups need specialists that are kicking butt at being excellent in particular areas, than a bunch of generalists doing everything mediocre.”

“Investors want to invest in people that are at the top of their game.”

“You haven’t launched because there’s something in this product that you can overcome without help.”

“Finding good people is about experimenting.”

Show notes

Sponsors

Our premium sponsor is Sprint.ly. Sprint.ly is agile project management software with one goal: to help you ship more stuff. You can try them out for free at www.sprint.ly. You can also thank them on Twitter: @sprintly

Shout outs

Welcome to our shout-outs section. This is a chance for you to advertise your bootstrapped product, a job opportunity, or your side-project to our audience of product people, entrepreneurs, developers and designers.

Second I’d like to promote our Product People newsletter. You can sign-up (and get product making resources sent directly to your inbox). This week we’re sending out the private conversation Kyle and I had while John was dealing with the fire alarm. Go to: wwww.productpeople.tv/newsletter

Finally: Ting! For our USA listeners, if you go to productpeople.ting.com. Ting is a mobile service that gives you great rates, no overage penalties, and multiple devices on one plan. If you go to productpeople.ting.com you’ll get $25 off most Ting devices or $25 toward Ting service!

Want to be featured in this Shout Section? The cost starts at $39 per episode, and it’s a great way to reach thousands of people. To purchase a shout-out go to: productpeople.tv/shoutout

]]>http://productpeople.tv/2013/04/10/ep21-john-saddington-on-deadlines-partners-ugly-babies-and-warning-bells-part-2/feed/2kickstarter,wordpressThis week we have part 2 of our interview with John Saddington that literally sent warning bells blaring through the 8Bit office. We also hear about his new Kickstarter campaign: Pressgram (an iOS app that allows you to take filtered photos,This week we have part 2 of our interview with John Saddington that literally sent warning bells blaring through the 8Bit office. We also hear about his new Kickstarter campaign: Pressgram (an iOS app that allows you to take filtered photos, and publish them to your Wordpress blog).
Highlights
"Without deadlines you just never know if there's progress, or to measure momentum."
"Without deadlines you won't know if you've succeeded in doing anything."
"Without personal deadlines you can be slaving away on something and never launch."
"When you have partners you will have more fun, you will make more money, and you will have more margin than without."
"Unless you're a magical unicorn that can do all things, you're probably going to be a specialist (a designer, business person, developer). Startups need specialists that are kicking butt at being excellent in particular areas, than a bunch of generalists doing everything mediocre."
"Investors want to invest in people that are at the top of their game."
"You haven't launched because there's something in this product that you can overcome without help."
"Finding good people is about experimenting."
Show notes
8Bit
Pressgram (John's Kickstarter project)
John's landing page
@saddington on Twitter
Sponsors
Our premium sponsor is Sprint.ly. Sprint.ly is agile project management software with one goal: to help you ship more stuff. You can try them out for free at www.sprint.ly. You can also thank them on Twitter: @sprintly
Shout outs
Welcome to our shout-outs section. This is a chance for you to advertise your bootstrapped product, a job opportunity, or your side-project to our audience of product people, entrepreneurs, developers and designers.
Shout-out #1: Jesse Storimer's post on selling $18k worth of ebooks
The first shout out comes from Jesse Storimer who's promoting this post he's written.
This is super interesting, Jesse says: "Learn how I launched my first ebook with *no* audience, and no promotion. Then sold $18,000 worth in the first 4 months."
Go to bit.ly/ebook18k, leave a comment and let him know you found him through Product People
Shout-out #2: Product People newsletter
Second I'd like to promote our Product People newsletter. You can sign-up (and get product making resources sent directly to your inbox). This week we're sending out the private conversation Kyle and I had while John was dealing with the fire alarm. Go to: wwww.productpeople.tv/newsletter
Shout-out #3: Save 10% on domains at Hover.com
Next up: Hover.com. Register a domain with Hover.com and use the promo code "productpeople" (all one word) to get 10% off your order!
Shout-out #4: Get $25 off at Ting
Finally: Ting! For our USA listeners, if you go to productpeople.ting.com. Ting is a mobile service that gives you great rates, no overage penalties, and multiple devices on one plan. If you go to productpeople.ting.com you'll get $25 off most Ting devices or $25 toward Ting service!
Want to be featured in this Shout Section? The cost starts at $39 per episode, and it's a great way to reach thousands of people. To purchase a shout-out go to: productpeople.tv/shoutoutJustin Jacksonno43:22EP20: John Saddington of 8Bit on his adventure as an entrepreneurhttp://productpeople.tv/2013/04/03/ep20-john-saddington-part1/
http://productpeople.tv/2013/04/03/ep20-john-saddington-part1/#commentsWed, 03 Apr 2013 09:00:01 +0000http://productpeople.tv/?p=129Before this interview we thought John Saddington was a guy that built WordPress products with his team at 8Bit (we were also intrigued by his new Kickstarter campaign: Pressgram). What we didn’t realize is that John, at a young age, had worked his way up the corporate ladder at big companies like Fox and Dell. Today you’ll hear his story.

Show notes

Sponsors

Our premium sponsor is Sprint.ly. Sprint.ly is agile project management software with one goal: to help you ship more stuff. You can try them out for free at www.sprint.ly. You can also thank them on Twitter: @sprintly

Shout outs

Welcome to our shout-outs section. This is a chance for you to advertise your bootstrapped product, a job opportunity, or your side-project to our audience of product people, entrepreneurs, developers and designers.

Our fellow Canadian Marc-Andre Cournoyer is teaching classes at classes.codedinc.com. This is advanced training for developers on Rails, Node.js and other programming languages.

Want to be featured in this Shout Section? The cost starts at $39 per episode, and it’s a great way to reach thousands of people. To purchase a shout-out go to: productpeople.tv/shoutout

]]>http://productpeople.tv/2013/04/03/ep20-john-saddington-part1/feed/58bit,entrepreneur,funding,kickstarter,vc,venture,wordpressBefore this interview we thought John Saddington was a guy that built Wordpress products with his team at 8Bit (we were also intrigued by his new Kickstarter campaign: Pressgram). What we didn't realize is that John, at a young age,Before this interview we thought John Saddington was a guy that built Wordpress products with his team at 8Bit (we were also intrigued by his new Kickstarter campaign: Pressgram). What we didn't realize is that John, at a young age, had worked his way up the corporate ladder at big companies like Fox and Dell. Today you'll hear his story.
Highlights
"I realized that as an executive, you don't get to code."
"It was difficult for me to reconcile my interests [in products] with my father's [as a salary man]"
The power of a start and end date for projects: "I give myself timelines for my side-projects: I'll say if I don't hit these metrics within 6 months, I'll move on."
"Entrepreneurs do way too much due diligence. Just push 'start', jump in!"
Show notes
8Bit
Pressgram (John's Kickstarter project)
John's landing page
@saddington on Twitter
Sponsors
Our premium sponsor is Sprint.ly. Sprint.ly is agile project management software with one goal: to help you ship more stuff. You can try them out for free at www.sprint.ly. You can also thank them on Twitter: @sprintly
Shout outs
Welcome to our shout-outs section. This is a chance for you to advertise your bootstrapped product, a job opportunity, or your side-project to our audience of product people, entrepreneurs, developers and designers.
Shout out #1: Marc-Andre Cournoyer, Advanced training for developers
Our fellow Canadian Marc-Andre Cournoyer is teaching classes at classes.codedinc.com. This is advanced training for developers on Rails, Node.js and other programming languages.
Want to be featured in this Shout Section? The cost starts at $39 per episode, and it's a great way to reach thousands of people. To purchase a shout-out go to: productpeople.tv/shoutoutJustin Jacksonno30:27EP19: Jason Evanish shares his process for understanding customershttp://productpeople.tv/2013/03/27/ep19-jason-evanish-shares-his-process-for-understanding-customers/
http://productpeople.tv/2013/03/27/ep19-jason-evanish-shares-his-process-for-understanding-customers/#commentsWed, 27 Mar 2013 09:00:57 +0000http://productpeople.tv/?p=124Jason Evanish has made a name for himself as a customer-focused entrepreneur. He caught the eye of Hiten Shah, the founder of KISSmetrics. Hiten asked Jason to leave Boston, and move to the Valley to become KISSmetric’s Product Manager.

Since then, he’s become known as a generous teacher; especially when it comes to customer development, pattern matching, and product development.

If you want the resources that Jason Evanish talked about: the Product Thesis, the customer development process and the process for validating your idea, all you have to do is sign-up for our mailing list. Go to productpeople.tv/newsletter

Show notes

Sponsors

Our premium sponsor is Sprint.ly. Sprint.ly is agile project management software with one goal: to help you ship more stuff. You can try them out for free at www.sprint.ly. You can also thank them on Twitter: @sprintly

Shout outs

Welcome to our shout-outs section. This is a chance for you to advertise your bootstrapped product, a job opportunity, or your side-project to our audience of product people, entrepreneurs, developers and designers.

]]>http://productpeople.tv/2013/03/27/ep19-jason-evanish-shares-his-process-for-understanding-customers/feed/3customer development,kissmetrics,launchJason Evanish has made a name for himself as a customer-focused entrepreneur. He caught the eye of Hiten Shah, the founder of KISSmetrics. Hiten asked Jason to leave Boston, and move to the Valley to become KISSmetric's Product Manager. - Since then,Jason Evanish has made a name for himself as a customer-focused entrepreneur. He caught the eye of Hiten Shah, the founder of KISSmetrics. Hiten asked Jason to leave Boston, and move to the Valley to become KISSmetric's Product Manager.
Since then, he's become known as a generous teacher; especially when it comes to customer development, pattern matching, and product development.
If you want the resources that Jason Evanish talked about: the Product Thesis, the customer development process and the process for validating your idea, all you have to do is sign-up for our mailing list. Go to productpeople.tv/newsletter
Show notes
KISSmetrics
Jason on Twitter
Jason on About.me
FogPHP blog post on launching
Sponsors
Our premium sponsor is Sprint.ly. Sprint.ly is agile project management software with one goal: to help you ship more stuff. You can try them out for free at www.sprint.ly. You can also thank them on Twitter: @sprintly
Shout outs
Welcome to our shout-outs section. This is a chance for you to advertise your bootstrapped product, a job opportunity, or your side-project to our audience of product people, entrepreneurs, developers and designers.
Shout out #1: ThinkMojo and Startup-Videos.com
I love this site: Startup-videos.com showcases the best startup videos around helping you find inspiration & resources for your product demo video.
Shout out #2: Follow us on Twitter
One last shout out for Product People: follow us on Twitter to give us feedback!
To purchase your own shout-out go to: productpeople.tv/shoutoutJustin Jacksonno30:27EP18: Jason Evanish moves to San Franciscohttp://productpeople.tv/2013/03/20/ep18-jason-evanish-par/
http://productpeople.tv/2013/03/20/ep18-jason-evanish-par/#commentsWed, 20 Mar 2013 15:30:22 +0000http://productpeople.tv/?p=120While in Boston, Jason Evanish made a name for himself as a customer-focused entrepreneur. He caught the eye of Hiten Shah, the founder of KISSmetrics. Hiten asked Jason to leave Boston, and move to the Valley to become KISSmetric’s Product Manager.

Since then, he’s become known as a generous teacher; especially when it comes to customer development, pattern matching, and product development.

In this candid interview, Jason shares what he’s learned so far leading product at KISSmetrics.

Highlights

“Your assumptions are not necessarily true.”

“Customer development is a series of tactics to get to the core of what a customer really is. You find out what there problem is, and create a solution that can really delight them. The challenge is that customers won’t flat out tell you what they need. You need a process to draw it out of them.”

“If you want to get the politics out of your organization, become a data-driven company. Now you have numbers and data.”

“A lot of people think customer development is highly subjective. The key is you need to trust the interpreter. If you were having someone translate from Chinese to English, you would need to trust the person doing the interpretation.”

“What kind of data should you track? Look at feature adoption rates: what do people actually use?”

Sponsors

Our premium sponsor is Sprint.ly. Sprint.ly is agile project management software with one goal: to help you ship more stuff. You can try them out for free at www.sprint.ly. You can also thank them on Twitter: @sprintly

Shout outs

Welcome to our shout-outs section. This is a chance for you to advertise your bootstrapped product, a job opportunity, or your side-project to our audience of product people, entrepreneurs, developers and designers.

One last shout out for Product People: if you want to see the video version of our interview with Nathan Barry, all you have to do is sign-up for our mailing list. Just go to productpeople.tv/newsletter

]]>http://productpeople.tv/2013/03/20/ep18-jason-evanish-par/feed/2customer development,product,product development,product managerWhile in Boston, Jason Evanish made a name for himself as a customer-focused entrepreneur. He caught the eye of Hiten Shah, the founder of KISSmetrics. Hiten asked Jason to leave Boston, and move to the Valley to become KISSmetric's Product Manager. - While in Boston, Jason Evanish made a name for himself as a customer-focused entrepreneur. He caught the eye of Hiten Shah, the founder of KISSmetrics. Hiten asked Jason to leave Boston, and move to the Valley to become KISSmetric's Product Manager.
Since then, he's become known as a generous teacher; especially when it comes to customer development, pattern matching, and product development.
In this candid interview, Jason shares what he's learned so far leading product at KISSmetrics.
Highlights
"Your assumptions are not necessarily true."
"Customer development is a series of tactics to get to the core of what a customer really is. You find out what there problem is, and create a solution that can really delight them. The challenge is that customers won't flat out tell you what they need. You need a process to draw it out of them."
"If you want to get the politics out of your organization, become a data-driven company. Now you have numbers and data."
"A lot of people think customer development is highly subjective. The key is you need to trust the interpreter. If you were having someone translate from Chinese to English, you would need to trust the person doing the interpretation."
"What kind of data should you track? Look at feature adoption rates: what do people actually use?"
Sponsors
Our premium sponsor is Sprint.ly. Sprint.ly is agile project management software with one goal: to help you ship more stuff. You can try them out for free at www.sprint.ly. You can also thank them on Twitter: @sprintly
Shout outs
Welcome to our shout-outs section. This is a chance for you to advertise your bootstrapped product, a job opportunity, or your side-project to our audience of product people, entrepreneurs, developers and designers.
Shout out #1: Sam Baumgarten - learn about creating web apps
Checkout Sam Baumgarten's blog to learn about creating web apps and get updates on his projects such as Nathan Barry's ConvertKit. sambaumgarten.me
Shout out #2: Subscribe to our newsletter
One last shout out for Product People: if you want to see the video version of our interview with Nathan Barry, all you have to do is sign-up for our mailing list. Just go to productpeople.tv/newsletter
To purchase your own shout-out go to: productpeople.tv/shoutoutJustin Jacksonno36:10EP17: Nathan Barry shows you how to write, price and sell your ebook (part 2)http://productpeople.tv/2013/03/13/ep17-nathan-barry-part-2/
http://productpeople.tv/2013/03/13/ep17-nathan-barry-part-2/#commentsWed, 13 Mar 2013 09:00:53 +0000http://productpeople.tv/?p=113Nathan Barry has released two really successful ebooks, and a new web app called ConvertKit. If you’ve ever wanted to write your own ebook, but couldn’t get started, this interview is sure to inspire you to create and launch your own stuff.

Sponsors

Our premium sponsor is Sprint.ly. Sprint.ly is agile project management software with one goal: to help you ship more stuff. You can try them out for free at www.sprint.ly. You can also thank them on Twitter: @sprintly

Shout outs

Welcome to our shout-outs section. This is a chance for you to advertise your bootstrapped product, a job opportunity, or your side-project to our audience of product people, entrepreneurs, developers and designers.

One last shout out for Product People: if you want to see the video version of our interview with Nathan Barry, all you have to do is sign-up for our mailing list. Just go to productpeople.tv/newsletter

]]>http://productpeople.tv/2013/03/13/ep17-nathan-barry-part-2/feed/4ebooksNathan Barry has released two really successful ebooks, and a new web app called ConvertKit. If you've ever wanted to write your own ebook, but couldn't get started, this interview is sure to inspire you to create and launch your own stuff. Show notes Nathan Barry has released two really successful ebooks, and a new web app called ConvertKit. If you've ever wanted to write your own ebook, but couldn't get started, this interview is sure to inspire you to create and launch your own stuff.
Show notes
https://twitter.com/nathanbarry
http://nathanbarry.com
http://nathanbarry.com/app-design-handbook/
http://nathanbarry.com/webapps/
Scrivener
iBooks Author
https://convertkit.com
http://nathanbarry.com/competitive-advantage/
http://thinktraffic.net/most-common-pricing-mistake
Sponsors
Our premium sponsor is Sprint.ly. Sprint.ly is agile project management software with one goal: to help you ship more stuff. You can try them out for free at www.sprint.ly. You can also thank them on Twitter: @sprintly
Shout outs
Welcome to our shout-outs section. This is a chance for you to advertise your bootstrapped product, a job opportunity, or your side-project to our audience of product people, entrepreneurs, developers and designers.
Shout out #1: Working with Unix Processes by Jesse Storimer
Our friend Jesse has written a great book: Working with Unix Processes
More than 2000 Ruby programmers have discovered the fundamentals of system programming with my ebook. Go check it out and spawn some daemons. workingwithunixprocesses.com
Shout out #2: Beathound by Creature Creative
Beathound is a service for staying on top of new releases from the artists you love. If you've ever missed an album from your favorite band, you need to try Beathound.
They've just added a cool feature for anyone following SXSW - visit beathound.com/sxsw to follow new releases from all of SXSW's showcasing artists this year.
Shout out #3: Save Business Time with Espree
Our listener Espree has built savebusinesstime.com: a marketplace for the world's best web apps for business. These are apps that help people get their work done faster. If you have a B2B app that you'd like to promote, you can submit it at: www.savebusinesstime.com/submit-your-tool/
Shout out #4: Copywriting for Geeks by Marc-André Cournoyer
Next up: fellow Canadian Marc-André Cournoyer has a great book Copywriting for Geeks. Learn how a developer quit his job and started a product business that became profitable from day one. Visit copywritingforgeeks.com
Shout out #5: Subscribe to our newsletter
One last shout out for Product People: if you want to see the video version of our interview with Nathan Barry, all you have to do is sign-up for our mailing list. Just go to productpeople.tv/newsletter
To purchase your own shout-out go to: productpeople.tv/shoutoutJustin Jacksonno40:44EP16: Nathan Barry’s story; building iPad apps, ebooks and web apps (part 1)http://productpeople.tv/2013/03/06/ep16-nathan-barry-part1/
http://productpeople.tv/2013/03/06/ep16-nathan-barry-part1/#commentsWed, 06 Mar 2013 08:02:05 +0000http://productpeople.tv/?p=105Nathan Barry is an amazing individual: when you spend time with him you can’t help but be inspired to create and launch your own stuff. As a young man he’s had tremendous success is releasing his own products: an iPad app called One Voice, two really successful ebooks, and a new web app called ConvertKit.

Sponsors

At our day jobs we’ve switch to Sprint.ly, and it has really simplified our development process. Now, everyone on the team has a simple view of our company’s development: on one screen, we can see what’s in the backlog, what people are currently working on, and what’s been completed and is ready for testing.

I’d like you to try Sprint.ly out for free: you can sign-up for a 30 day trial at www.sprint.ly

Shout outs

This is a chance for you to advertise your bootstrapped product, a job opportunity, or your side-project to our audience of product people, entrepreneurs, developers and designers. The cost starts at $39 per episode, and it’s a great way to reach thousands of people. To purchase a shout-out go to: productpeople.tv/shoutout

This week, we’ll give you a sample of what shout-out sounds like by promoting some of our projects here at Product People:

First shout-out: the best way for you to help share our show with others is to rate our show in iTunes. If you go into the iTunes store and search “Product People” you’ll find us. Then, it’s as simple as clicking 5 stars.

From Canada:
Add it to your weekly listens — 5 stars
– by Timothy Fletcher from Canada on 2013-02-14
Fascinating interviews with entrepreneurs that have been there and done it. Plenty of useful tips for building your own SaaS apps. Definitely worth a listen!

From the USA:
thorough, no-fluff advice for creating & selling your own products — 5 stars
– by RobertWilliams88 from United States on 2013-02-18
These guys do an awesome job asking questions. I find myself begin to wonder about a topic, then *BAM* someone asks it. They already have a bunch of my favorite people interviewed, I’m looking forward to what comes next. This is my favorite podcast.

From Spain:
Very insightful interviews — 4 stars
– by Amaia Castro from Spain on 2013-02-07
I’m thinking about making my own products and listening to this podcast is really helpful. Thanks for all the insightful interviews.

Thanks for listening, we’ll see you next week where Nathan returns to give us specific steps for building your own info-product.

]]>http://productpeople.tv/2013/03/06/ep16-nathan-barry-part1/feed/1ebook,infoproduct,ipad,nathan barry,web appNathan Barry is an amazing individual: when you spend time with him you can't help but be inspired to create and launch your own stuff. As a young man he's had tremendous success is releasing his own products: an iPad app called One Voice,Nathan Barry is an amazing individual: when you spend time with him you can't help but be inspired to create and launch your own stuff. As a young man he's had tremendous success is releasing his own products: an iPad app called One Voice, two really successful ebooks, and a new web app called ConvertKit.
Show notes
https://twitter.com/nathanbarry
http://nathanbarry.com
http://nathanbarry.com/app-design-handbook/
http://nathanbarry.com/webapps/
http://nathanbarry.com/2012-year-quitting-job/
http://unicornfree.com/2013/difficulties-for-nathan-barrys-app-experiment
https://convertkit.com
http://nathanbarry.com/competitive-advantage/
http://thinktraffic.net/most-common-pricing-mistake
Sponsors
This episode by Sprint.ly!
At our day jobs we've switch to Sprint.ly, and it has really simplified our development process. Now, everyone on the team has a simple view of our company's development: on one screen, we can see what's in the backlog, what people are currently working on, and what's been completed and is ready for testing.
I'd like you to try Sprint.ly out for free: you can sign-up for a 30 day trial at www.sprint.ly
Shout outs
This is a chance for you to advertise your bootstrapped product, a job opportunity, or your side-project to our audience of product people, entrepreneurs, developers and designers. The cost starts at $39 per episode, and it's a great way to reach thousands of people. To purchase a shout-out go to: productpeople.tv/shoutout
This week, we'll give you a sample of what shout-out sounds like by promoting some of our projects here at Product People:
First shout-out: the best way for you to help share our show with others is to rate our show in iTunes. If you go into the iTunes store and search "Product People" you'll find us. Then, it's as simple as clicking 5 stars.
From Canada:
Add it to your weekly listens -- 5 stars
- by Timothy Fletcher from Canada on 2013-02-14
Fascinating interviews with entrepreneurs that have been there and done it. Plenty of useful tips for building your own SaaS apps. Definitely worth a listen!
From the USA:
thorough, no-fluff advice for creating & selling your own products -- 5 stars
- by RobertWilliams88 from United States on 2013-02-18
These guys do an awesome job asking questions. I find myself begin to wonder about a topic, then *BAM* someone asks it. They already have a bunch of my favorite people interviewed, I'm looking forward to what comes next. This is my favorite podcast.
From Spain:
Very insightful interviews -- 4 stars
- by Amaia Castro from Spain on 2013-02-07
I'm thinking about making my own products and listening to this podcast is really helpful. Thanks for all the insightful interviews.
------
Second Shout-Out: you can follow us on Twitter at @productpeopletv
------
Thanks for listening, we'll see you next week where Nathan returns to give us specific steps for building your own info-product.Justin Jacksonno40:44EP15: Jason Fried on making money, internet fame, and the new Basecamphttp://productpeople.tv/2013/02/27/ep15-jason-fried/
http://productpeople.tv/2013/02/27/ep15-jason-fried/#commentsWed, 27 Feb 2013 09:00:56 +0000http://productpeople.tv/?p=89This week we have Jason Fried of 37signals on the program. We discuss how he made thousands of dollars in high school, why he chose DHH as a partner, what it’s like to be “internet famous”, and the thinking behind the new Basecamp, Basecamp Breeze and Basecamp Personal.

A quick note about the audio quality of this show: Jason had a bad WiFi connection that caused Skype to drop out at numerous times in the interview. We felt like the content was good, and so we released the show (even though the audio is not up to our standard). In order to serve you the listener, we paid to have a transcript made so you can read the interview. You can see this at: productpeople.tv/jasonfried

Shout outs

Here’s something new: it’s called Shout Outs, and it’s an inexpensive way for YOU to sponsor a show. Starting as low as $39 per episode, you can promote anything you want: It could be your bootstrapped startup, a job opening, or a side-project. We’ll read these “shout outs” at the end of each episode. You can get started at productpeople.tv/shoutout

Show notes

Transcript

Justin Jackson: [0:01] Hi, I’m Justin.

Kyle Fox: [0:02] And I’m Kyle.

Justin: [0:03] This is Product People. The podcast focused on great products and the people who make them.

Kyle: [0:10] This is a pretty exciting episode because our guest today is Jason Fried of 37signals. Of course, 37signals is the company behind Basecamp and a bunch of other popular products as well as the bestselling book Rework. Jason it’s a pleasure to have you today, thanks for taking your time to talk to us.

Jason Fried: [0:31] Thanks for having me on guys.

Justin: [0:33] Perfect. Well, Jason you guys have been really busy at 37signals. You have built a bunch of new stuff this year but before we get into all that I want to now, have you always been making products? Is this something you have been doing, you know, since you started 37signals or was there stuff you built and sold before that?

Jason: [0:55] When I first got started in computers I was in junior high school, I’m 38 now, so I guess that was, I don’t know, 25 years ago or something that I got a computer. I started messing around with it and one of the things I wanted to do was I wanted to keep track of all the different tapes and CDs that I had.

[1:21] So I eventually got on AOL, before the formal Internet was around, went to the file section, searched in the Mac section for like music organizing tools and I found some stuff and downloaded those things. They were mostly based in FileMaker Pro, which is a data base. I had FileMaker Pro so I could run them and I just didn’t like them. I don’t know what it was, they weren’t attractive, they weren’t easy to use, they were complicated, they were doing far more things than I needed.

[1:59] I just needed this really simple thing. I wanted to look good, and be fast. I ended up just figuring that I could figure out how to make this sort of thing myself. I had File Maker, I started screwing around, started learning how to do it, and I eventually made a product called Audio File, which I started using to catalog my music collection.

[2:21] I basically wrote a little text file, a read me file basically, and in there I said, “Hey, if you like this it’s $20.00. Send me a check, or send me $20.00″ and I put my address down. Then I uploaded it to AOL, and see what would happen. I had no idea.

[2:41] Then one day I got a check in the mail, well I got an envelope in the mail from a guy in Germany, and I didn’t know anybody in Germany. I hadn’t heard of anyone from Germany, I had never been there. And so my parents gave me this envelope, this air mail envelope, and I open it, and there was a print out of that read me file and $20.00.

[2:59] That was the start for me of selling software. After that I started taking off, and it didn’t put me through college or anything, but I had a nice amount of spending money, extra spending money in college just from this $20.00 shareware tool that I made. I probably made 10s of thousands of dollars or more selling it over the next few years.

Justin: [3:31] What was it like, did that seem significant to you? I would love to make $10,000.00 now as a high school kid, was that pretty significant?

Jason: [3:41] Oh yeah. I’ve always had jobs too, so I’ve been working since I was 13 at grocery stores and shoe stores and gas stations and all this stuff. I had part time jobs anyway. I would have had spending money, but it was great to have extra money coming in, to have a significant amount, and for it to be sort of this passive money in that I didn’t feel like I was working for it. I had already done the work, making software.

Justin: [4:11] Yeah.

Jason: [4:12] The money just kept coming in, unlike my part time jobs where I had to go after school and work for four hours or something every day. That was a real nice thing. It was great. It was killer. I bought a bunch of stuff I wanted like a stereo or whatever, just a bunch of garbage probably.

[laughter]

Jason: [4:33] But I bought stuff because I’m like, “Hey, I’ve got some money to buys stuff.” Then in college it came in handy because I didn’t work during college so I needed some money to spend. That was handy. Yeah, it was great. It was a revelation.

[4:43] The thing I realized early on is people are happy to pay for things that are good. Don’t be afraid to charge for your services. Don’t be afraid to charge for what you produce. If those people who don’t want to pay for it want to complain about it, that’s fine. They don’t have to buy it.

[5:01] There are plenty of people out there who appreciate something good and are happy to cough up some cash for it, because they think it’s worth their time and it makes their life better.

Justin: [5:11] Yeah. What did your folks think about that when this is going on and you’re in high school? Are you from an entrepreneurial family?

Jason: [5:20] Sort of. My grandfather started a grocery store chain way back when, so he was working on his own. My dad worked for someone else for a while, but then he was working on his own, so a little bit of that.

[5:37] I had always kind of felt like I’d be an entrepreneur at some level. My dad always encouraged me to be that way. The making money thing from this software thing on this thing called AOL, my parents didn’t get it.

Justin: [5:47] Yeah.

Jason: [5:48] And I kind of was surprised too, but they just kept seeing checks coming in the mail for me. Whenever I’d get home from school or something there’d be a pile of envelopes for me.

Justin: [laughs] [5:58]

Jason: [5:59] They liked it at a certain point, obviously.

Justin: [6:04] That’s hilarious. If I all of a sudden had $10,000 in envelopes, my parents would have some questions for me.

Jason: [laughs] [6:10] Well, of course, this is spread out over 10 years, but, yeah. They’re like, “What’s going on?” I showed them. “I made this thing, and people are paying for it.” They understood that part of it. They didn’t understand what the thing was, but they got, yeah, people pay for things they want to buy. “OK, people are paying for it. Good for you.”

Justin: [6:28] That’s great!

Kyle: [6:30] How old did you say you were when you first did this?

Jason: [6:34] You know, I can’t exactly remember but I feel like I was, I started doing the computer stuff in junior high and then I feel it was probably sometime in high school when I actually released the product.

[crosstalk]

Kyle: [6:50] OK

Jason: [6:51] …audio file product. I think, it’s been so long I don’t remember the exact years. But I started before I went to college and I kept it going through college and I sort of stopped after that.

Kyle: [7:02] Got you! That’s got to be quite a revelation for a late adolescent kid. I know around that time is sort of when I got a part time job after school and this whole idea of, hey! I’m going to, I guess this is just how the world works. You kind of trade your hours for dollars sort of thing. [laughs] Meanwhile you were seeing the opposite side of the spectrum. You build this thing one time and collect mad checks.

[7:27] So what was that like as, I imagine not many of your friends were doing something like that. They were kind of like doing the old thing.

Jason: [7:36] Well, you know, I always had tried to sell other things too. I got a reseller’s license when I was, I think, 14 or 15. I went with my dad downtown somewhere. I don’t remember all the details either. It was a long time ago.

[7:53] We got this license that allowed me to buy things from distributors at cost, and then I could resell them to my friends for like double because it was still cheaper than it would have been to get stuff from the store. If it wasn’t double it was like I’d make 50 percent.

[8:10] I had friends who were buying cordless phones from me and radar detectors for the car and stuff. At the store it was like $200, and I paid like $110 and sold it for like $160 or something, so I made $50.

[8:22] I’ve always been into the buying and selling and business side of things. The thing that was cool about software was that I felt like the majority of the effort was up front, and the payments came afterward, which I kind of liked compared to doing a reseller thing where you have to go buy inventory and sell it and then you have to go buy more inventory. You’re always working hard for the same amount of money instead of putting in a lot of that creativity up front and then reaping the rewards down the road.

Kyle: [8:55] Right, yeah, it totally makes sense. If we were to fast forward a little bit to the start of 37Signals, you guys started off as a design agency. Correct?

Jason: [9:08] That’s right.

Kyle: [9:09] So that would be a little bit different, I guess, than selling a product where you do all this upfront work and then collect on it sort of over the life of the product. So you started as a design agency but eventually transitioned into your first product, Basecamp.

[9:24] Do you want to talk about what that was like, going from agency to creating a product? What prompted you guys to build Basecamp? Was the idea of changing into a product company something you guys had from the start, or was it sort of like “Let’s build this and see what happens?”

Jason: [9:42] Basecamp came from our own need. We were a consulting firm and doing website design for people. We just got busier and busier doing that work. We needed a better way to manage these projects we were doing for clients.

[9:56] We were basically delivering things via email, which is fine. It works, but it just didn’t feel that, I don’t know, profession is the word I used. I don’t like that word today, but back then I was like, “This doesn’t feel professional” or something.

[10:12] There was no permanent record of things. It was just in in-boxes spread out all over the place. I’m like, “There’s got to be a better way to do this sort of thing.” So we looked around at some tools that existed in the market, but they weren’t really solving the problems.

It’s very similar to me way back in the day looking for music cataloging tools. I couldn’t find something that did what I needed it to do. All these things were doing other things that I didn’t need, so we decided to build our own project management tool [inaudible 00: [10:26] 10:42] .

[10:45] As we were building it we were using it. We were using it with our clients, and they were saying things like, “Hey, I need this sort of thing too. What is this? I’ve got projects. I need to manage my projects. Where I can I buy this thing?”

We said, “Well, we’re building this thing. You’re helping us figure it out as we go.” So [inaudible 00: [11:03] 11:05] goes off and goes, “Hey, maybe this is a product.” We finished it up, used it some more, and then polished it up to turn it into a product and then put some prices on it and threw it back out there. We made a website and talked about it on our blog and released it in February 2004 with a goal that if it could make $5000 a month after the first year.

[11:34] We figured it would take a year for it to make $5000 a month, but we’d be happy because that’s about $60,000 a year which is like a nice client project. We’d be doing our client work, and we’d have this “free money” this free $60,000 coming in every year.

[11:43] It turned out that we hit that number in like five, six, seven, eight weeks, something like that. I don’t remember the exact time. It didn’t take a year. It took like a month or two months, and it was doing more than $5000 a month. So we knew we were onto something.

[12:03] It just turned out that a year later it was doing more money than our consulting business was, so we stopped doing the consulting stuff and started doing product development, not developing products but just focused on Basecamp. The rest is sort of history for that.

Kyle: [12:11] Right, yeah. Cool.

Justin: [12:13] So, Jason, maybe we can talk a little bit about…because along that time you met this guy named David Heinemeier Hansson. Maybe actually you can give Kyle and I some advice, because him and I are new partners on this podcast.

[12:33] It’s similar. We met each other online, and now we’ve got a little bit of revenue. I think in some ways Kyle and I are at the point where we’re saying, “Do we want to actually partner up for real and make this official?” How did you go through that process with David?

Jason: [12:52] Well, I originally hired David. He was in school at the time and I hired him to give me 10 hours a week. Actually, let me step back because that’s actually not accurate. Actually there’s something before that.

[13:00] I hired him to do a project for me. I’d been working on a program in PHP and I made a thing called Single File which is a book collection database. I made it and I was kind of getting stuck and so I asked some people for some help and David was one of the people who heard about that I needed help.

[13:31] He wrote me an email and started helping me back and forth. This is just free, like advice. And then like, I really like this guy, his advice and how clear he is and whatever. So I hired him to do that project for me, to finish that tool.

Justin: [13:44] OK.

Jason: [13:45] It worked out really well. That was the first project we did together. Then this other project came up at 37signals, which was an Internet project for a client of ours, called Summit Credit Union. We were doing the redesign, then we said, hey, maybe we can add some awesome functionality to it.

[14:08] I said, “Hey David, would you be the programmer on this, we will do the design, you the programming and we will sell this thing.” He said sure, he was a student, he was looking for money. We worked together on that project, which was a great project, we worked on some other projects like that.

[14:25] He was getting out of school, we were talking and so I hired him as a contractor to do Basecamp, then hired him as an employee and then from the employee he eventually became a partner in the business. It was a series of tasks basically, but they weren’t really tasks.

[14:41] Looking back it looks like they were tasks but they were really just experiences working together at a different capacity along the way and realizing that we got along well, we would be good partners in the business. The key was that he was introducing a skill or he was bringing a skill to the table that I didn’t have.

[15:03] So he was a programmer. I was a designer. He wasn’t a designer. I wasn’t a programmer. So we complemented each other well which I think is important for partners. So it happened over a series of years, gaining trust working together, and that’s how it all came together eventually.

Justin: [15:23] Was there any part of you that was still nervous when you made that jump to saying I’m actually going to give you part of this company that we built? Was there any sort of hesitation, or by that point had you built enough trust to say “I trust this guy. We can go ahead on this.”

Jason: [15:43] Well, there was hesitation just because it’s a big step to do the…I’ve had a couple of partners before at 37 Signals and, at this point, I was back on my own again at 37 Signals, so it’s a couple of things. One didn’t work out really and the other guy just left a few years later.

[16:05] They were all good amicable separations but I’m back to my own again. Do I want to go back in this whole partner thing again? Do I want down that road again? So there was that, of course. But I could tell that David was a special, unique guy and that had we not partnered up he would have gone off to do his own thing. So I kind of saw it as a bigger risk not to get him more involved. I also thought that he would contribute a lot more as an owner and everything.

[16:49] While there was that initial sort of, do I really want to go down this partner thing road again, there was also the, yes, this makes sense, I’m going to take a risk, I’m going to bet on this guy and believe in him, and I’ll make a bet and see what happens. It was good obviously.

Justin: [17:02] Yeah. It paid off.

Jason: [17:04] Yep.

Justin: [17:04] Well, maybe one last question in kind of just the background story. When you guys started doing Basecamp and started blogging, you were kind of the underdogs. No one really knew who you were and your biggest competitor was Microsoft in the project management space. But now, especially in the tech community, a lot of people know who you are.

[17:34] How does it feel to have all of this attention now? What’s it like? Has it changed from when you first started and does it make it harder? Does it make it easier? Do you like the attention? What’s that like?

Jason: [17:50] I don’t really think about it. I know that we have the ability to get attention by saying things or announcing things, but it doesn’t affect our decisions day to day. People do care about what we are doing, some people love it, some people hate it. The point is if we have something to say, people will listen. So, that’s good, that’s a huge advantage.

[18:23] But day to day, I don’t think about it. Personally I’m more of a private guy, I don’t like to seek attention and I would rather be at home, I’m kind of an introverted person. It’s one of the reasons why I don’t like conferences and stuff. I don’t really want the attention, I just want to do great work and build cool stuff and that is what I was doing.

[18:50] One of the things is of course when more people know about you their expectations are different. In many ways it’s very hard to meet those expectations on a consistent basis when they have their own expectations that are sort of impossible to meet.

[19:16] When you’re releasing your product it’s very easy to go is that all? Is that all they could do? Is that it? You know that sort of thing which you wouldn’t get that normally if you were brand new. So there is a little bit of that stuff, but for the most part it’s great. I mean it’s great to have the ability to not have to pay for attention because we’ve earned it over the years. That’s definitely helpful.

Interviewer: [19:40] Well this segue ways into something that Kyle was asking me about. What was, with the Basecamp relaunch, right Kyle?

Kyle: [19:53] I think it’s been close to a year since you guys relaunched Basecamp correct? I think you launched in the start of March 2012.

Jason: [20:01] That’s right.

Kyle: [20:05] I’ve worked in the past at places where we’ve decided to rebuild the product from scratch. It ends up being good but it’s also in some ways never really as good as you imagined or it takes a little bit longer. Some people tend to say you should never rebuild your product. Which I don’t personally think, but there’s a pretty strong following for that line of thinking.

[20:32] I’d be curious to know, now that you guys are a year into it, looking back on it what originally prompted you guys to take on this huge risk of rebuilding a successful product and how did it go? Did it take longer than you might have thought or have you been overall happy with how this went?

Jason: [20:54] It was a pretty [inaudible 00:20:56] mostly between me and David initially. The new Basecamp was my idea. I want to build a new Basecamp, let’s start over, let’s solve similar problems but new ways. I started working on this. And this typically happened [inaudible 00:21:13] I’ll have some idea and I’ll just start mocking it up and screwing around and whatever.

[21:17] And then I’ll show Dave and get his feedback on it. Because David has really insightful take on things and he also reacts quickly which is good and bad. But really good when you’re showing him because good to see quick reactions on things.

[21:38] Anyway, I go off on my own and work with another designer or something and do something and then I show David. Actually David wasn’t convinced because he’s always thought, like you mentioned, and it’s sort of said in the industry that total rewrites are usually a huge mistake. They usually don’t turn out as well as they should. It’s a ton of time spent for very little return. It’s like the curse of software development.

[22:07] He was naturally opposed to that, which I totally understood, too. I was talking to him like, “Let’s not get stuck not doing something because we’re not supposed to. Let’s try something and see if we can do something that we’re not supposed to. Let’s not stop doing it because we’re not supposed to. Let’s start doing it because we’re not supposed to and see what happens.”

[22:32] We went back to the drawing board to look over some stuff. He had some really good feedback on a few things. I went back, changed the design around, messed around, went to him again. We started seeing where it was going and then got really excited about it.

[22:46] The idea behind it was not to recreate Basecamp that we already had. That’s what happens with a lot of rewrites. A team would rewrite a product. What will come out of it is the exact same product with a new code base. That’s not worth the time.

[23:02] We were going to approach the same problems, which was communication and collaboration, and sharing information and keeping it all on one place online and that kind of stuff.

Kyle: [23:11] Right.

Jason: [23:12] Priorities. That’s why it made sense.

Kyle: [23:18] Yeah, and I think that’s a perfect example of when it does make sense to possibly do a rewrite. When a lot of people say to not do a rewrite or it’s a mistake is, I think because, in a lot of cases, when a company decides to do a rewrite the decision is technology based, like let’s migrate from this old technology stack to a newer technology stack because of these technology reasons.

[23:45] In you guys’ case it sounds like you learned a lot and gained a lot of insight from running Basecamp, the first version, and it probably gave you some different ways to approach the problems. It’s kind of like a problem solving reason to approach a rebuild rather than technology.

Jason: [24:09] Yeah, we have gotten to use a lot of new technology. One of the reasons why we couldn’t improve…one of the reasons we talked about was could we take these ideas that we come up with and sort of fix Basecamp the classic, the original Basecamp. Could we change it in these ways?

It just turns out that when you have a product that’s been around for years, there is so much [inaudible 00: [24:27] 24:31] built up, technology wise and also customer expectation. If you go off and change it drastically it really ends up being very difficult.

[24:40] So we decided to keep the old Basecamp which we renamed classic around forever. As long as people are using it, it’s going to stick around. A lot of people still use it. But we’re going to focus our efforts on the new Basecamp, new tech, new ideas, the whole thing, and run both versions.

[24:56] When you’re a new customer you only get the new one. Anyone who is on the old one can stay on the old one, or they can move if they want. It took about a year to do. We wanted to take a little bit less time. We thought it might take six months originally or something. We made a lot of plans and we went and changed a lot of things and did some stuff and worked for months on something and threw it out and things like that.

[25:22] We went back and forth. But I’m extremely happy with how it came out. Aside from the original decision to make Basecamp, it’s the best decision as a company we’ve ever made to redo it. I think it gives us a lot of opportunity to do some really interesting things moving forward as well.

[25:38] We’re really thrilled with it, customers are loving it, the numbers that we care about are all up. It put us back up on the map which was good for us too because we built this thing eight years ago and that’s long time ago. So it’s good to show that we can do something like this.

Justin: [25:59] In the last few minutes we have here I want to talk about Basecamp Breeze and Basecamp Personal. Because you recently got rid of a bunch of products that were low cost or for consumers like Draft, Backpack, Ta-da, and Writeboard. I was a little bit surprised when you guys came out with these two personal products. I think they’re both, you just pay once and you can use it forever.

Jason: [26:31] Right.

Kyle: [26:32] What was the thinking behind that? Why launch these products aimed at consumers?

Jason: [26:37] Well, they’re not really aimed at consumers necessarily. Let’s kind of throw that word just for a second. The idea behind these two products was we were actually setting up some mailing lists. I was realizing how complicated it is to set up a mailing list. It’s kind of ridiculous how hard it is.

[26:57] Google lists, or Google groups, and Yahoo groups and stuff. You can do it, it’s just they’re really complicated for just simple things, which is I just want an email address I can send an email to and have everyone get it. Anyone who responds to that email it goes to everyone else too. That’s all I wanted.

[27:11] A lot of people actually use Basecamp this way. A lot of people use Basecamp as a mailing list where they’ll post messages and it gets sent out to everybody and the whole thing. So we just said what if we totally strip this out and built a real simple mailing list tool as sort of an experiment in single pay software. Everything else we’ve ever really done has been subscription based.

Could we make something that was so damn simple and [inaudible 00: [27:37] 27:40] and just see what happens. We did that and that’s what Basecamp Breeze. The idea maybe is that perhaps people cross over to Basecamp when they hear about Basecamp Breeze. They’ll check it out, they’ll get on a list, they’ll find it out, they’ll follow a URL and they’ll find out hey, there’s this other Basecamp thing. It’s a little bit of a marketing experiment and a pricing experiment.

That’s kind of [inaudible 00: [28:02] 28:02] all about. Basecamp Personal on the other hand is a direct response to customers asking us if they can use Basecamp for personal projects or projects for their volunteer group or church group or something. Because they want to use Basecamp for that, but the pricing model just doesn’t work. It’s too expensive.

[28:22] And the subscription model isn’t a good model for a home renovation project, which might take six months, or a month, who knows, and it can get really expensive to keep going.

[28:33] We had this idea that we could basically sell individual Basecamp projects for 25 bucks each, and you can use them as long as you want. You only have to pay 25 bucks. There’s some limitations, like there’s only a gig of space, and you can only invite five people. There’s no calendar, and some other stuff.

[28:56] It’s pointed currently, at people who already use “Basecamp.” Already know “Basecamp.” They don’t have to be sold on it, they love it already at work, but they want to use it for other stuff. It’s just 25 bucks, one time, per project.

[29:07] That was a fun experiment. That’s an example of selling the same product, in a different way. We didn’t have to change the code base really. We just pulled some stuff out. It’s the same exact code base, Basecamp Personal, and Basecamp are the same thing. It’s just a different pricing model, and there’s some different walls up in different places.

[29:26] So far, Basecamp Personal has been really successfully sold, close to a 1000 projects. That’s like $25,000 in less than a month, just putting this thing out there, barely making any noise about it. Pretty soon we’re going to open it up to everyone in the world. Right now it’s only available to Basecamp customers. We’re going to let anyone create their own Basecamp project soon, but for now it’s just focus on existing customers.

Justin: [29:52] I’d love to check-up on you in a year, and see if there was a marketing benefit from that. If there was a crossover from Breeze and Personal. That would be interesting.

Jason: [30:04] Yeah, I’m curious. I don’t know, we don’t know. It’s just a guess. It’s way too early to say anyway, but yeah, maybe in a year we’ll know more.

Kyle: [30:13] All right. We’re just about out of time here. I thought maybe we would end with one last quick question.

Jason: [30:20] , what sort of advice would you offer for a solo product creator? Based on your experience, should they may be set out to build a full SaaS app like Basecamp? Do you think there’s a market for smaller products like Breeze? Like a one off, one price, a little bit smaller scope. Where would be a good place for somebody to start?

Jason: [30:43] It’s hard to say, but what I can tell you is that Basecamp Breeze on its own, would not support anybody. It’s 10 bucks. Let’s just say we even sold 10 thousand Breeze accounts. That’s 100 grand, which is nice obviously, but we haven’t sold 10 thousand. We have to sell a lot more to get even close to that.

[31:10] It would be very hard to make enough money selling one off things like this, that need ongoing support. It’s different when you’re talking about an iPhone app, or something, where you sell once. You’re not supporting the server, and the infrastructure. It’s just the app.

If you want to go down the one price road, to start, I wouldn’t build a Web app that does that, because that requires 24/7 up-time, and that kind of stuff. We’re fortunate that we have that [inaudible 00: [31:27] 31:40] structure already set-up, so we can do that sort of thing, and experiment with that sort of thing. But it’s not going to support someone very long.

[31:49] I would definitely suggest to people if they’re going to build their first product, and maybe they’re just on their own right now, to try something with recurring revenue. Because it will take a lot of the pressure off making sure the bills get paid and that you have some money to spend yourself. You can control the cash flow a lot more, and I just think that’s a better place to start. I think once you have a successful customer base and infrastructure you can really start to experiment with single pressing options and stuff like that.

[32:21] I also wouldn’t try and build something very big either. I think you can build something real simple and you could charge 20-30 bucks a month for it if it’s a solid product. I would also focus on business stuff because businesses are happy to pay for things generally. It doesn’t need to do a lot, it just needs to be useful. And you can build a nice business that way.

[32:42] I would stay away from the consumer business too as a single product person who’s starting out because it’s very hard to get the consumers to pay for things when it comes to software unless it’s like two bucks. Everyone seems to be stuck with the 99 cents or $2 products now so that’s what people are used to. Businesses are used to paying a lot of money for things, 20 bucks a month sounds like a huge discount to them so there’s a lot more opportunity there I think.

Kyle: [33:09] Right. So in summary probably a smaller scope, some kind of recurring product ideally geared towards businesses. That’s kind of a good place to start.

Jason: [33:21] I think so. Real focused, you know, what do you need as a business owner? In fact, we’re working on another product right now that we need as a business, and we’ve been building it for just like about a month really.

[33:34] Well, it’s been floated longer than that, but really seriously for a month. It’s just me and one other guy doing it here. We could technically release that product in a few weeks if we wanted to. It is six to eight weeks worth of work, two guys, could probably have been one person.

[33:53] It’s a tool I think a lot of businesses are going to be interested in paying for. I think it’s certainly possible to do that. You don’t have to think that things are going to take you a year to do. If you’re focused and you do a few things well, then you can be in a good spot.

Justin: [34:05] So we’ll wait for that, and maybe in two weeks there’s going to be another product announcement.

Jason: [34:08] No, not in two weeks. It could be technically, but there’s no chance.

[laughter]

Jason: [34:14] Yeah, we’re working on something that’s going to hopefully be out later this year. I’m just saying that you really could, technically we could get it out there with eight weeks worth of development. It’s certainly possible to do that.

Justin: [34:29] You’re being too conservative. You’ve got to get it out now. [laughs]

Jason: [34:33] Maybe we’ll get it out sooner than later. We’ll see. We’ll see how it goes.

Justin: [34:37] OK. Well, Jason, thanks so much for your time. In the show notes we’re going to put links to all of Jason’s contact information, the 37Signals website, and a link to the landing page for the new book that he and David Heinemeier Hansson are working on. It’s called “Remote.” You guys can check that out in the show notes. Jason, thanks so much for taking the time today to talk to us.

Jason: [35:02] You bet. It was really fun. Thanks for having me on, guys. It’s good to hear from you again, Justin, by the way. We hadn’t talked in a while.

Justin: [35:07] Yeah, yeah. It’s good to hear from you too.

Jason: [35:09] Cool.

Justin: [35:09] Cool.

Kyle: [35:10] See you later.

Jason: [35:11] Bye now.

]]>http://productpeople.tv/2013/02/27/ep15-jason-fried/feed/337signals,basecamp,dhh,fried,jasonfried,saasThis week we have Jason Fried of 37signals on the program. We discuss how he made thousands of dollars in high school, why he chose DHH as a partner, what it's like to be "internet famous", and the thinking behind the new Basecamp,This week we have Jason Fried of 37signals on the program. We discuss how he made thousands of dollars in high school, why he chose DHH as a partner, what it's like to be "internet famous", and the thinking behind the new Basecamp, Basecamp Breeze and Basecamp Personal.
A quick note about the audio quality of this show: Jason had a bad WiFi connection that caused Skype to drop out at numerous times in the interview. We felt like the content was good, and so we released the show (even though the audio is not up to our standard). In order to serve you the listener, we paid to have a transcript made so you can read the interview. You can see this at: productpeople.tv/jasonfried
Shout outs
Here's something new: it's called Shout Outs, and it's an inexpensive way for YOU to sponsor a show. Starting as low as $39 per episode, you can promote anything you want: It could be your bootstrapped startup, a job opening, or a side-project. We'll read these "shout outs" at the end of each episode. You can get started at productpeople.tv/shoutout
Show notes
Jason Fried
David Heinemeier Hansson
Their new book: Remote
New Basecamp
Basecamp Breeze
Basecamp Personal
Sponsor: Sprint.ly
Transcript
Justin Jackson: [0:01] Hi, I'm Justin.
Kyle Fox: [0:02] And I'm Kyle.
Justin: [0:03] This is Product People. The podcast focused on great products and the people who make them.
Kyle: [0:10] This is a pretty exciting episode because our guest today is Jason Fried of 37signals. Of course, 37signals is the company behind Basecamp and a bunch of other popular products as well as the bestselling book Rework. Jason it's a pleasure to have you today, thanks for taking your time to talk to us.
Jason Fried: [0:31] Thanks for having me on guys.
Justin: [0:33] Perfect. Well, Jason you guys have been really busy at 37signals. You have built a bunch of new stuff this year but before we get into all that I want to now, have you always been making products? Is this something you have been doing, you know, since you started 37signals or was there stuff you built and sold before that?
Jason: [0:55] When I first got started in computers I was in junior high school, I'm 38 now, so I guess that was, I don't know, 25 years ago or something that I got a computer. I started messing around with it and one of the things I wanted to do was I wanted to keep track of all the different tapes and CDs that I had.
[1:21] So I eventually got on AOL, before the formal Internet was around, went to the file section, searched in the Mac section for like music organizing tools and I found some stuff and downloaded those things. They were mostly based in FileMaker Pro, which is a data base. I had FileMaker Pro so I could run them and I just didn't like them. I don't know what it was, they weren't attractive, they weren't easy to use, they were complicated, they were doing far more things than I needed.
[1:59] I just needed this really simple thing. I wanted to look good, and be fast. I ended up just figuring that I could figure out how to make this sort of thing myself. I had File Maker, I started screwing around, started learning how to do it, and I eventually made a product called Audio File, which I started using to catalog my music collection.
[2:21] I basically wrote a little text file, a read me file basically, and in there I said, "Hey, if you like this it's $20.00. Send me a check, or send me $20.00" and I put my address down. Then I uploaded it to AOL, and see what would happen. I had no idea.
[2:41] Then one day I got a check in the mail, well I got an envelope in the mail from a guy in Germany, and I didn't know anybody in Germany. I hadn't heard of anyone from Germany, I had never been there. And so my parents gave me this envelope, this air mail envelope, and I open it, and there was a print out of that read me file and $20.00.
[2:59] That was the start for me of selling software. After that I started taking off,Justin Jacksonno36:33EP14: Kyle Fox on launching, metrics, and lessons learned (part 2)http://productpeople.tv/2013/02/20/ep14-kyle-fox-part-2/
http://productpeople.tv/2013/02/20/ep14-kyle-fox-part-2/#commentsWed, 20 Feb 2013 09:00:20 +0000http://productpeople.tv/?p=94Kyle Fox is back for another episode: this time he talks with Justin about the power of design, how big their launch mailing list was, and why it’s important to track your metrics from the beginning.

How should you run your beta program? Should you give beta testers free access for life?

Besides co-hosting this podcast, and working as a Product Manager at Granify, Kyle runs his own SaaS app on the side: FotoJournal. FotoJournal allows photographers to create a professional looking photo blog.

Show notes

]]>http://productpeople.tv/2013/02/20/ep14-kyle-fox-part-2/feed/0fotojournal,granify,kylefox,saasKyle Fox is back for another episode: this time he talks with Justin about the power of design, how big their launch mailing list was, and why it's important to track your metrics from the beginning. - How should you run your beta program?Kyle Fox is back for another episode: this time he talks with Justin about the power of design, how big their launch mailing list was, and why it's important to track your metrics from the beginning.
How should you run your beta program? Should you give beta testers free access for life?
Besides co-hosting this podcast, and working as a Product Manager at Granify, Kyle runs his own SaaS app on the side: FotoJournal. FotoJournal allows photographers to create a professional looking photo blog.
Show notes
FotoJournal
Buffer
Jon Smelquist
Techvibes write-up on FotoJournal
Petapixel write-up
FotoJournal launch party
MixpanelJustin Jacksonno42:19EP13: Kyle Fox on building his own SaaS apphttp://productpeople.tv/2013/02/13/ep13-kyle-fox-part1/
http://productpeople.tv/2013/02/13/ep13-kyle-fox-part1/#commentsWed, 13 Feb 2013 09:00:37 +0000http://productpeople.tv/?p=85Kyle Fox is a real Renaissance man. Besides co-hosting this podcast, and working as a Product Manager at Granify, he also runs his own SaaS app on the side: FotoJournal. FotoJournal allows photographers to create a professional looking photo blog.

If you’ve asked these questions, you can learn from Kyle’s experience: what should I build? Should we incorporate? Should I get the .com?

Kyle talks about why he decided NOT to launch a competitor to Freshbooks, why perfectionism is his enemy, and how he had people sign-up and become paying customers when he launched.

Show notes

]]>http://productpeople.tv/2013/02/13/ep13-kyle-fox-part1/feed/0app,saas,sideprojectKyle Fox is a real Renaissance man. Besides co-hosting this podcast, and working as a Product Manager at Granify, he also runs his own SaaS app on the side: FotoJournal. FotoJournal allows photographers to create a professional looking photo blog. - Kyle Fox is a real Renaissance man. Besides co-hosting this podcast, and working as a Product Manager at Granify, he also runs his own SaaS app on the side: FotoJournal. FotoJournal allows photographers to create a professional looking photo blog.
If you've asked these questions, you can learn from Kyle's experience: what should I build? Should we incorporate? Should I get the .com?
Kyle talks about why he decided NOT to launch a competitor to Freshbooks, why perfectionism is his enemy, and how he had people sign-up and become paying customers when he launched.
Show notes
FotoJournal
Lift Interactive
Parade
Jon Smelquist
Techvibes write-up on FotoJournal
Petapixel write-up
FotoJournal launch party
They incorporated online at Staples.ca
MixpanelJustin Jacksonno40:30EP12: Brennan Dunn on startup launch tactics (part 2)http://productpeople.tv/2013/02/06/ep12-brennan-dunn-part2/
http://productpeople.tv/2013/02/06/ep12-brennan-dunn-part2/#commentsWed, 06 Feb 2013 09:18:45 +0000http://productpeople.tv/?p=82Learn Brennan’s trick for identifying a good market: “find a community, and just keep adding value.” Whether that’s a forum response, blog post, info-product, or SaaS app, learn how choosing an audience and sticking with them can pay off.

Show notes

]]>http://productpeople.tv/2013/02/06/ep12-brennan-dunn-part2/feed/2amyhoy,email,launch,marketing,startupLearn Brennan's trick for identifying a good market: "find a community, and just keep adding value." Whether that's a forum response, blog post, info-product, or SaaS app, learn how choosing an audience and sticking with them can pay off. Highlights - Learn Brennan's trick for identifying a good market: "find a community, and just keep adding value." Whether that's a forum response, blog post, info-product, or SaaS app, learn how choosing an audience and sticking with them can pay off.
Highlights
"Most of my users don't care that [Planscope] is project management software; they care about outcomes." - Brennan Dunn
"Instead of listing out technical features, which is what [we as developers] want to do, I need to tell a story." - Brennan Dunn
How did you get people to care? How did you get people to notice your product?
"My entire marketing strategy is marketing through education. I knew the problems my audience was having, so I started blogging about those problems." - Brennan Dunn
"People don't buy software just to buy software: they buy software to make their lives better somehow. A blog post is equally able to do that (to make their lives better)." - Brennan Dunn
What kind of traffic did you get on your blog when you started?
"I got a few thousand views over the months that I was building Planscope" - Brennan Dunn
"Blogging allowed me to get out of the code and answer the question: 'Why am I doing this?'" - Brennan Dunn
How did you build your email list?
It was a mailing list of 300 people when he launched.
Brennan built his list over the 4 months that he was building Planscope.
Most of the sign-ups to his email list came from his blog.
1/3 of his mailing list signed up for a trial account (100 people)
25% of his trial users converted to paying accounts (25 people)
Where does growth come from?
Most of Brennan's customers have come from his blog posts, and his email list
Another important source of traffic: his book Double Your Freelancing Rate.
How much money has Brennan earned so far? (as of December)
Planscope - $29,904 ($6,000 / month)
Books - $35,00
Classes - $41,000
Show notes
Planscope.io
KISSmetrics
Stripe
Double Your Freelancing RateJustin Jacksonno44:41EP11: Brennan Dunn on building his startup, Planscopehttp://productpeople.tv/2013/01/30/ep11-brennan-dunn-part1/
http://productpeople.tv/2013/01/30/ep11-brennan-dunn-part1/#commentsWed, 30 Jan 2013 09:06:54 +0000http://productpeople.tv/?p=75How do you make a name for yourself, and your product?

That’s the question we posed to Brennan Dunn. It seemed like almost overnight he was everywhere: blog posts on Hacker News, popping up in my Twitter stream, and promoting a new product for consultants called Planscope. In this episode we delve into how he made this happen: we asked him how he got his start in products, how he promoted himself, and what Latin has to do with all of this.

Show notes

]]>http://productpeople.tv/2013/01/30/ep11-brennan-dunn-part1/feed/8amyhoy,marketing,product,research,startupHow do you make a name for yourself, and your product? - That's the question we posed to Brennan Dunn. It seemed like almost overnight he was everywhere: blog posts on Hacker News, popping up in my Twitter stream,How do you make a name for yourself, and your product?
That's the question we posed to Brennan Dunn. It seemed like almost overnight he was everywhere: blog posts on Hacker News, popping up in my Twitter stream, and promoting a new product for consultants called Planscope. In this episode we delve into how he made this happen: we asked him how he got his start in products, how he promoted himself, and what Latin has to do with all of this.
Highlights
"Businesses value [services] more than consumers, because [time lost] is literally costing them money." - Brennan Dunn
"Listen to what people, who have a financial interest, are complaining about!" - Brennan Dunn
It's clear that Brennan's real advantage is that he's passionate about his customers: he honestly wants to make their lives better.
"People don’t buy software, they buy outcomes" - Brennan Dunn
Show notes
Planscope
Build a consultancy workshop
Book: Double Your Freelancing Rate
Book: Sell Yourself Online
37signals on Apple.com
Brennan Dunn (@brennandunn) on TwitterJustin Jacksonno35:02EP10: Rob Walling – outsource on oDesk, find your idea, market your product (part 2)http://productpeople.tv/2013/01/23/ep10-rob-walling-part2/
http://productpeople.tv/2013/01/23/ep10-rob-walling-part2/#commentsWed, 23 Jan 2013 09:30:40 +0000http://productpeople.tv/?p=70Have you ever wondered how much personal brand affects software sales? Check out this is great episode with Rob Walling. In our interview he reveals a ton of tactics for outsourcing your development on oDesk, finding a good idea for your business, and marketing your product effectively. If you’ve ever wanted to start and launch your own software products as a solo-founder, this episode is full of practical advice you can use. Rob is the founder of HitTail, and co-founder of Startups for the Rest of Us and the Micropreneur Academy.

And you can find that market fairly easily: if you can’t communicate to them easily, you don’t have a business

What is the actual genesis of a good idea?

You can solve your own problem: but make sure you validate it with 10 other people. Also, think about how you’re going to market it to “people like yourself”. “Scratching your own issue isn’t enough”, says Rob, “you have to solve a problem and have a market.”

You can also find a market that you find interesting, and where you have some sort of traction in. Then you can look for problems to solve. With Drip, Rob chose it because he really likes working with the entrepreneur market.

What are the characteristics of a good market? (and a bad market)

“There are no bad markets,” says Robs, “some markets are just harder to communicate to than others.”

Rob likes markets that are online, that talk to each other (virality), and open to trying new things. (For example: Realtors and lawyers are notasopen to trying new things)

Ability and willingness to pay: don’t create an app for college students or school teachers! There’s a lack of an ability to pay.

Which is better: B2B or B2C?

“I prefer B2B because businesses purchase based on value”, says Rob, “if you can save them money or make them money, you can justify your price. Consumers don’t value their time as much.”

Should you go after hobby markets? Rob thinks they can work for info-products and mobile apps, but not SaaS apps.

“Consumers are harder to support” – Rob

How to market your product:

Personal brand: “Personal brand has very little to do with B2B sales,” comments Rob, “in terms of HitTail’s growth, most of it has come from other channels.” He says that books, conferences, and training courses can benefit from a strong personal brand. You have to have an interesting perspective: this is often formed by what you’ve achieved (personally). What projects and products have you launched? “The earlier you can be laser focused on a certain audience, the faster you’ll build a following. Rob started focusing on solo-founders, who were bootstrapping.

Content marketing: this is building info graphics, writing viral blog posts that get shared: it’s socially driven. It can be really effective: The problem with this approach is that it’s time-intensive and can be expensive. Look for long-tail search terms: these are low competition phrases, that can still attract a significant amount of traffic. This is why Rob bought HitTail: it surfaces those long-tail keywords for you. Rob currently has his Product Manager do a lot of writing for him, he outsources other things (like the infographic). Rob outsources as much as possible. “Be sure to measure”, says Rob, put out a lot of content and then look at the ROI for each.

SEO: this is finding keywords, and writing good content that matches those keywords. “This isn’t just ranking in Google; it includes ranking in Amazon, in YouTube, in the iPhone app store, ranking in WordPress theme directory. It’s really hard to contract out SEO. “What has always worked is writing good content,” says Rob, “start with keywords that people are going to be searching for, blog about it, and then get links to those posts. It is a lot of work.” There’s not as much opportunity to game Google.

Advertising: It’s hard to get right, but it can really grow your customer base. “You really want to have a customer lifetime value over $150 to even look at advertising”, says Rob. Click advertising has gotten really expensive (especially on Google Adwords). New opportunities: Facebook ads, depending on your market BuySellAds, Reddit ads, LinkedIn (you need a higher lifetime value for it), and StumbleUpon ads. Rob manages all of his advertising campaigns in Google Analytics – use the Google URL Builder to identify which campaign you’re running.

Show notes

]]>http://productpeople.tv/2013/01/23/ep10-rob-walling-part2/feed/1brand,marketing,odesk,outsourcingHave you ever wondered how much personal brand affects software sales? Check out this is great episode with Rob Walling. In our interview he reveals a ton of tactics for outsourcing your development on oDesk, finding a good idea for your business,Have you ever wondered how much personal brand affects software sales? Check out this is great episode with Rob Walling. In our interview he reveals a ton of tactics for outsourcing your development on oDesk, finding a good idea for your business, and marketing your product effectively. If you've ever wanted to start and launch your own software products as a solo-founder, this episode is full of practical advice you can use. Rob is the founder of HitTail, and co-founder of Startups for the Rest of Us and the Micropreneur Academy.
Highlights
How to outsource your work: techniques for oDesk:
Browse the listings: look how boring most of the tasks are!
Post an interesting job description
Build relationships, and treat the people you hire well
What makes a good idea, in terms of building a business?
Build something people want, solves a problem (problem-solution fit). Rob recommends Steve Blank's customer development approach: contact people, tell them what your product does, how much you'll charge, and ask them if they'll pay for it. Rob
And you can find that market fairly easily: if you can't communicate to them easily, you don't have a business
What is the actual genesis of a good idea?
You can solve your own problem: but make sure you validate it with 10 other people. Also, think about how you're going to market it to "people like yourself". "Scratching your own issue isn't enough", says Rob, "you have to solve a problem and have a market."
You can also find a market that you find interesting, and where you have some sort of traction in. Then you can look for problems to solve. With Drip, Rob chose it because he really likes working with the entrepreneur market.
What are the characteristics of a good market? (and a bad market)
"There are no bad markets," says Robs, "some markets are just harder to communicate to than others."
Rob likes markets that are online, that talk to each other (virality), and open to trying new things. (For example: Realtors and lawyers are not as open to trying new things)
Ability and willingness to pay: don't create an app for college students or school teachers! There's a lack of an ability to pay.
Which is better: B2B or B2C?
"I prefer B2B because businesses purchase based on value", says Rob, "if you can save them money or make them money, you can justify your price. Consumers don't value their time as much."
Should you go after hobby markets? Rob thinks they can work for info-products and mobile apps, but not SaaS apps.
"Consumers are harder to support" - Rob
How to market your product:
Personal brand: "Personal brand has very little to do with B2B sales," comments Rob, "in terms of HitTail's growth, most of it has come from other channels." He says that books, conferences, and training courses can benefit from a strong personal brand. You have to have an interesting perspective: this is often formed by what you've achieved (personally). What projects and products have you launched? "The earlier you can be laser focused on a certain audience, the faster you'll build a following. Rob started focusing on solo-founders, who were bootstrapping.
Content marketing: this is building info graphics, writing viral blog posts that get shared: it's socially driven. It can be really effective: The problem with this approach is that it's time-intensive and can be expensive. Look for long-tail search terms: these are low competition phrases, that can still attract a significant amount of traffic. This is why Rob bought HitTail: it surfaces those long-tail keywords for you. Rob currently has his Product Manager do a lot of writing for him, he outsources other things (like the infographic). Rob outsources as much as possible. "Be sure to measure", says Rob, put out a lot of content and then look at the ROI for each.
SEO: this is finding keywords, and writing good content that matches those keywords.Justin Jacksonno36:52EP09: Rob Walling – Get off the hamster wheel, build your own products!http://productpeople.tv/2013/01/16/ep09-rob-walling-part1/
http://productpeople.tv/2013/01/16/ep09-rob-walling-part1/#commentsThu, 17 Jan 2013 01:28:03 +0000http://productpeople.tv/?p=66Rob Walling is the man behind products like HitTail, DotNetInvoice, and Drip. But he also helped start a movement of micropreneurs: solo-founders, who launch their own products. These small startups don’t take venture funding and don’t hire employees. In this part 1 of our interview you’ll hear how he went from consulting, to building products full-time. Learn how you can acquire a product (instead of building it yourself) and why the code is less valuable than the product marketing.

“Building something people want is not enough”, says Rob “you have to be able to market it at a cost less than what the customer will pay you back over time.”

He also talks about how to launch products if you’ve already started a family (wife, kids, and a mortgage).

Show notes

]]>http://productpeople.tv/2013/01/16/ep09-rob-walling-part1/feed/3family,founder,kids,micropreneur,solo,startupsRob Walling is the man behind products like HitTail, DotNetInvoice, and Drip. But he also helped start a movement of micropreneurs: solo-founders, who launch their own products. These small startups don't take venture funding and don't hire employees.Rob Walling is the man behind products like HitTail, DotNetInvoice, and Drip. But he also helped start a movement of micropreneurs: solo-founders, who launch their own products. These small startups don't take venture funding and don't hire employees. In this part 1 of our interview you'll hear how he went from consulting, to building products full-time. Learn how you can acquire a product (instead of building it yourself) and why the code is less valuable than the product marketing.
"Building something people want is not enough", says Rob "you have to be able to market it at a cost less than what the customer will pay you back over time."
He also talks about how to launch products if you've already started a family (wife, kids, and a mortgage).
Rob and Mike Taber host podcast that you'll want to check out: Startups For the Rest of Us.
Show notes
Software by Rob blog
HitTail
Drip
DotNetInvoice
CMSthemer.com
justbeachtowels.comJustin Jacksonno35:34EP08: Sacha Greif on choosing a co-founder and building MVPhttp://productpeople.tv/2013/01/09/ep08-sacha-greif-2/
http://productpeople.tv/2013/01/09/ep08-sacha-greif-2/#commentsWed, 09 Jan 2013 09:00:21 +0000http://productpeople.tv/?p=56This is part 2 of our interview with Sacha Greif. In this episode we talked with him about how to find a partner, and the pain involved in building up a product income.

Sacha is a designer and coder from Paris, France, but he’s now living in Osaka, Japan. He’s worked with companies like Hipmunk, but he’s best known for his cool side-projects. His most recent, called Telescope, is an open source platform for creating your own Hacker News.

Highlights

When searching for co-founders, Sacha says: “If you try to find [partners] motivated by money it’s a lot different than finding people who are interested in the project itself”

He said that his “internet popularity” didn’t help him find a partner to build Telescope with him; what worked was getting involved in the Meteor community.

Sacha talks about the importance of side-projects: “The cool thing about the web is that anyone can create a hit. But it helps a lot if you already have a network, and an audience. When I launched Folyo I didn’t really have that audience. I think getting people to pay attention to what you do is the hardest thing on the internet.”

“If you think about it, there are two sides to the equation: having people pay attention, and the other side is having people pay money. Step 1 is doing something popular [where they pay attention]. Step 2 is getting people to pay for products.” – Sacha Greif

“The biggest problem people make is they think too big with their side-projects. They instantly jump to: ‘I’m going to build a social network.’ My advice is to bottle it down to the Minimum Viable Side Project. It should be something you can build in 10 hours.” – Sacha Greif

Building a product income is hard! Sacha was really transparent about how he’s not earning a lot of money right now as he attempts to bootstrap his current projects: Sidebar.io and a book on Meteor.

At the end of the interview, Sacha shared this: we don’t hear about the failures of product people; we only hear about the wins. This makes people think that everyone is winning, when that’s not reality.

]]>http://productpeople.tv/2013/01/09/ep08-sacha-greif-2/feed/3daring fireball,design,design links,france,japan,sacha greifThis is part 2 of our interview with Sacha Greif. In this episode we talked with him about how to find a partner, and the pain involved in building up a product income. - Sacha is a designer and coder from Paris, France, but he's now living in Osaka,This is part 2 of our interview with Sacha Greif. In this episode we talked with him about how to find a partner, and the pain involved in building up a product income.
Sacha is a designer and coder from Paris, France, but he's now living in Osaka, Japan. He's worked with companies like Hipmunk, but he's best known for his cool side-projects. His most recent, called Telescope, is an open source platform for creating your own Hacker News.
Highlights
When searching for co-founders, Sacha says: "If you try to find [partners] motivated by money it's a lot different than finding people who are interested in the project itself"
He said that his "internet popularity" didn't help him find a partner to build Telescope with him; what worked was getting involved in the Meteor community.
Sacha talks about the importance of side-projects: "The cool thing about the web is that anyone can create a hit. But it helps a lot if you already have a network, and an audience. When I launched Folyo I didn't really have that audience. I think getting people to pay attention to what you do is the hardest thing on the internet."
"If you think about it, there are two sides to the equation: having people pay attention, and the other side is having people pay money. Step 1 is doing something popular [where they pay attention]. Step 2 is getting people to pay for products." - Sacha Greif
"The biggest problem people make is they think too big with their side-projects. They instantly jump to: 'I'm going to build a social network.' My advice is to bottle it down to the Minimum Viable Side Project. It should be something you can build in 10 hours." - Sacha Greif
"My inspiration for Sidebar.io is Daring Fireball; but a multi-user Daring Fireball." - Sacha Greif
Building a product income is hard! Sacha was really transparent about how he's not earning a lot of money right now as he attempts to bootstrap his current projects: Sidebar.io and a book on Meteor.
At the end of the interview, Sacha shared this: we don't hear about the failures of product people; we only hear about the wins. This makes people think that everyone is winning, when that's not reality.
Show notes
Tom Coleman
Telescope
Sidebar.io
Sacha's website and blog
The side-project project
Sacha's ebook: Step by Step UI Design
Medium
Amy Hoy - 30x500
Twistori
Getting Real by 37signals
Branch
Startup Chile
(Photo: Sacha Greif on Instagram)Justin Jacksonno40:05EP07: Creating info-products with Sacha Greif (part 1)http://productpeople.tv/2013/01/02/sacha-greif-part1/
http://productpeople.tv/2013/01/02/sacha-greif-part1/#commentsWed, 02 Jan 2013 19:23:44 +0000http://productpeople.tv/?p=52What are some good strategies for creating, pricing and selling an ebook? In Part 1 of our interview with Sacha we discuss what he learned launching his first book, and what he plans on doing next time. We also take a look at Meteor, “an open-source platform for building web apps” using pure JavaScript.

Highlights

Sacha kick-started his product career by selling themes on Themeforest. “I was doing products before I knew I was doing products.”

His first real solo product was his ebook: Step by Step UI Design. He recommends starting small: “I didn’t set out to write a 200 page book. I set out to write a 40 page book.”

Sacha based the price of his book on what iOS apps were selling for ($2-$5): “It turns out, that’s a bad way to do pricing.” For his next book, he’s going to employ a higher price strategy (similar to what Nathan Barry did for his ebook).

People on Hacker News balked at Nathan’s high ebook prices. Sacha thinks: “People don’t understand how segmentation works. If you want to buy a car, you could buy a Ferrari or a Honda. You know those two cars are for different audiences. No one complains about the price of Ferraris; people understand that they are expensive. It’s the same with ebooks; just like you can buy a cheap car or expensive car, you can buy a cheap [ebook] package or expensive package. If you think the expensive package is too expensive, it just means you are not the target audience.”

Sacha on segmentation: “People think it’s crazy that Nathan Barry is charging $200 for his ebook package; but they’re not the target audience. He doesn’t want you [the individual] to pay that; but rather the office manager at the big company (who isn’t spending his own money) to purchase it.”

How Sacha plans on promoting his next book: “I’ve started setting up a mailing list on the Telescope site. There’s a small sign-up form for the book’s mailing list on there. I’ll be sending sample chapters to these people and asking them for feedback.”

]]>http://productpeople.tv/2013/01/02/sacha-greif-part1/feed/1ebook,info product,meteor,sacha greifWhat are some good strategies for creating, pricing and selling an ebook? In Part 1 of our interview with Sacha we discuss what he learned launching his first book, and what he plans on doing next time. We also take a look at Meteor,What are some good strategies for creating, pricing and selling an ebook? In Part 1 of our interview with Sacha we discuss what he learned launching his first book, and what he plans on doing next time. We also take a look at Meteor, "an open-source platform for building web apps" using pure JavaScript.
Highlights
Sacha kick-started his product career by selling themes on Themeforest. "I was doing products before I knew I was doing products."
His first real solo product was his ebook: Step by Step UI Design. He recommends starting small: "I didn't set out to write a 200 page book. I set out to write a 40 page book."
Sacha based the price of his book on what iOS apps were selling for ($2-$5): "It turns out, that's a bad way to do pricing." For his next book, he's going to employ a higher price strategy (similar to what Nathan Barry did for his ebook).
People on Hacker News balked at Nathan's high ebook prices. Sacha thinks: "People don't understand how segmentation works. If you want to buy a car, you could buy a Ferrari or a Honda. You know those two cars are for different audiences. No one complains about the price of Ferraris; people understand that they are expensive. It's the same with ebooks; just like you can buy a cheap car or expensive car, you can buy a cheap [ebook] package or expensive package. If you think the expensive package is too expensive, it just means you are not the target audience."
Sacha on segmentation: "People think it's crazy that Nathan Barry is charging $200 for his ebook package; but they're not the target audience. He doesn't want you [the individual] to pay that; but rather the office manager at the big company (who isn't spending his own money) to purchase it."
How Sacha plans on promoting his next book: "I've started setting up a mailing list on the Telescope site. There's a small sign-up form for the book's mailing list on there. I'll be sending sample chapters to these people and asking them for feedback."
"Meteor is a step above [other frameworks]. I think it's the future," says Sacha.
"I wanted to build a Hacker News for designers; because I think that's missing right now", comments Sacha. This project became Sidebar.io.
Show notes
Telescope
Sidebar.io
Sacha's website and blog
"You don't have to be local" (Derek Sivers)
Themeforest
Sacha's ebook: Step by Step UI Design
More money from fewer ebook sales
Nathan Barry's new ebook: Designing Web Apps
MeteorJustin Jacksonno38:01EP06: Patio11 on building products that make money (part 2)http://productpeople.tv/2012/12/26/patio11-part2/
http://productpeople.tv/2012/12/26/patio11-part2/#commentsWed, 26 Dec 2012 13:34:45 +0000http://productpeople.tv/?p=46Want to build a software product that actually earns income?

In this (Part 2) episode Patrick McKenzie (Patio11) shares specific tactics for researching a market and finding a problem to solve. Listen now.

Highlights

Don’t think up a cool product idea, go and spend months developing it, and then try to find customers. It won’t work.

Instead, go out and talk to people and see if you can find 5 people who will buy it.

Trick for interviewing people in potential markets: tell them you’ll pay them their normal rate, but instead of getting their service, you get to ask them questions about their industry (Patio11 interviewed massage therapists and stylists this way)

Be relentlessly curious: ask people about their business problems.

“Businesses have a lot more money. The people who are responsible for making a purchasing decision in the business aren’t spending their own money; the office manager at a business is very not reluctant to spend 200 dollars a month of that business’ money.”

Avoid the education and hobbyist markets: Patrick loves Dungeons and Dragons, but doesn’t think you can make much income by building software products for D&D players.

“There’s different types of pain: you want to be solving a problem where people know they have the problem and are actively looking for solutions, rather than something that the pain is bearable, or is just considered so endemic to the condition that they are not actively trying to get better at that.”

Have the humility to talk to people and find out what they really want.

Transcript

Justin: Huh. That is so fascinating. Basically, in 2010, you were able to stop working at the day job and just live on product income.
Patrick: Right.
Justin: Was there a portion of that that was consulting, as well, or was that all, you quit because you were making enough on the product?
Patrick: I quit because I was making enough on the product. But there's an asterisk there with regards to consulting stuff. Bingo Card Creator is highly seasonal, because it tracks the school year. Sales go down every summer. I was quitting in April.
I thought, OK, I know I'm fine until the school year ends. Then, summer's going to be interesting. Either I'm going to be burning savings or having to subsist on credit cards until the school year starts up again.
Justin: Yeah.
Patrick: But when I went home Christmas 2009, I met a buddy of mine who I had become acquaintances with over Hacker News. My buddy's name is Thomas. He's a security consultant who works in Chicago.
He knows that I'm pretty good on this online marketing stuff that I've been blogging about for the last couple of years. Oh, if it wasn't obvious, I'd kept up a blog from the day I started working on Bingo Card Creator in 2006, through 2010 and continuing through now.
Justin: That's at kalzumeus.com.
Patrick: Right. Kalzumeus.com. It moved around a bit, but it's there now.
Justin: OK.
Patrick: Anyhow, so there's this guy in Hacker News who was very smart. We're mutual admiration society of each other's comments, and he was in Chicago where my family's from. I said, "Hey, I'm coming home for Christmas, do you want to get coffee?" My only plan for getting coffee was, why don't we talk about Hacker News threads and laugh? I'm a geek. I'm very, very geeky.
Thomas says, "That sounds like an excellent plan." We go to a coffee shop. He says, "Hey, this coffee shop happens to be under my office. Do you want to come up to my office?"
We go to his office. Says, "Hey, why don't we drink our coffee in that conference room over there with my VP?" Thomas, who founded the security consultancy with a few other guys and his VP come into the conference room and they lock the door at me. We just start talking about online marketing, and in particular, how I would do online marketing if I was in charge of it for a security consultancy.
This is absolute brain crack for me. I talk non-stop for about three hours. At the end of it, Thomas has a check list of things that he's going to try. He says, "I've got to tell you, as a consultant myself, if you hadn't phrased this as, 'Let's get coffee together...' If you had phrased this as, 'Why don't I do a consulting gig for you on improving your online marketing,' I would be writing you a check right now."
I had just quit a job that paid me less than $3000 a month. I thought that $100 an hour would be incredibly generous for intermediate engineer's time. My mental peg for my work was $100 an hour. I said, "Well, Thomas, $300 around Christmas, honestly that's not enough to worry about doing a whole invoicing dance or anything." Yada, yada, yada. I was basically coming up with reasons why I could not do the consulting that I had just done.
Thomas said, "I don't think this was worth $300. I think this was worth $15,000 to me." I said, "What?" Thomas went to his VP and he said, "Do you think we got $15,000 out of this?" The VP said, "$15,000 is a little steep." I said, "See, the VP, he is sane." The VP then stumbles over my words and says, "But we could pay $5000 for it out of petty cash, no problem." That was the first time I ever had the inkling that, wow, for-profit businesses really have money to spend on business problems.
Sure enough, they did actually deploy the advice to much more than either of those two numbers, in fact within several weeks. That ended up working out pretty well. Prior to that, people had emailed me a couple of times and said, "Hey, I read you blog. You seem like a smart guy. Do you consult?"
I always said, "No. I've got a day job." Yada, yada, yada, but when folks emailed me after I quit, instead of saying, "I don't think I'm good enough to do consulting," I started to say, "Yeah. That sounds found. Why don't we talk about it?"
With the idea that I could do that during the summer months and then not have to dip into savings or anything. I started doing consulting concurrently with the product development. Actually, I say that, but I had a good six months of down time caused by just total burnout. Because, for the last six months at the day job, I was working 100 hour weeks, seven days a week and it just killed me. There's another product story in here.
[cross-talk]
Justin: I'd love to hear the next one. Let's go.
Patrick: Sure. Basically, at no point in my life was I ever thinking, "Man, I should live off..." Oh, maybe not true.
[silence 36:45 to 36:53]
Patrick: Let me think. I was about to say, at no point in my life did I ever think that I would just live off Bingo Card Creator. That's not true. During the midst of my burnout, that was an attractive option to me.
Justin: Yeah.
Patrick: Just coast on Bingo Card Creator, spend five hours a week on maintenance, and then just spend the rest of my time living. Because I was very much overworked. The thing that changed my mind on that score was a conversation with Joel Spolsky, who I got my coffee entrepreneurship bud from his forums, and spent a lot of time reading his essays. He's one of my software heroes.
Justin: Yeah.
Patrick: I had the opportunity to meet him at a conference once. I don't know if the entire conversation is for public consumption, but the gist of it was that people who are capable of doing things have an obligation to do them...to bring their gifts to the world basically. He grounded it in a Talmudic understanding of the relationship between people, society, and capabilities and obligations, which...I'm not Jewish, I'm actually strict Catholic, but it spoke to me.
Justin: Interesting. Yeah.
Patrick: Wow. It would be a waste if that was all I did. Then I got more serious about shipping the second product that I'd been thinking of. Let's talk about the second products. That's a misnomer. There were three second products.
While I was still at the day job, I had made inklings of direction of launching two different things prior to that, but I had killed both of them before launch, because I did everything the LEAN startup folks tell you not to do.
Justin: OK.
Patrick: I started from, "I think this sounds like a great problem. I'm going to go code away in my bat cave for a little while, and then I'm going to try and find customers for it." Luckily, I didn't have them done, but they were half-built in the bat cave before I figured out, wait, there's no way I can make the numbers work for this, or of getting customers into it, and I have no clue what the customer even looks like.
Justin: Yeah.
Patrick: But anyhow. After quitting the day job, I was exposed to a technology called Twilio. Twilio is an API that lets you make phone calls and send text messages from a web application. This is not the right way to go about identifying a business. I thought, wow, that's an awesome capability, and there's so much done by businesses that requires a telephone. There must be some way I can make a business on top of this new tech that I love playing with.
Justin: Yeah. That happens a lot. I think people will see there's some tools or there's some technology, and you'll be thinking, man, how can I build a business around that? I think that's a really...
Patrick: It's seductive, and it's the wrong way to think of it.
Justin: Yeah, exactly.
Patrick: The problem was, that's the way I actually did it. Do what I say, not what I do. I had a notebook full of ideas for what I could do for Twilio. Then one day, in the midst of my being burnt out and getting up at noon and feeling like doing not too much, I went down to the cafe where I usually had lunch.
Went to the massage therapist next door and said, "I spend too much time on the computer. My shoulders are aching. Can you give me a massage?" She said, "Yeah, we have a two-hour wait right now, but we can see you after two hours." I said, "Oh, that's fine. I've got an iPad with me. I'll just sit in this chair and wait here for two hours."
15 minutes later, she comes back and says, "I know I told you two hours later, but it would be really, really good if you could take your massage right now." I said, "Oh. Sure, that's no problem for me. I have nothing planned today, because I'm gainfully unemployed. But can I ask, what changed?"
She said, "Well, my appointment that was scheduled to come in right now didn't come in." I'm like, "Oh, that's interesting." One of the things that had been in my book of ideas was reminding software.
I said, "Why didn't you call him to see if he was coming in to the appointment?" She said something that stuck with me. "I'm a massage therapist. If my hands are on the telephone, they're not on someone's back. If they're not on someone's back, I'm not getting paid," I said, "Ooh. Ooh, that's interesting."
Justin: Yeah.
Patrick: The next time I went back to America to see family...Again in Chicago...I went to an ATM, took out $400, and started wandering around downtown Chicago just looking for anything that looked like a high-end salon or a massage therapy practice or that sort of thing. I would walk into them, talk to the lady behind the counter, and say, "Excuse me, are you the proprietor?" If she said yes, I said, "Do you accept walk-ins?"
If she said yes, I said, "All right. I'd like the 30-minute thing. But I have a proposition for you. Rather than having a massage or a haircut for the next 30 minutes, I just want to talk to you about the industry, because I'm interested in it. I'll pay you your normal rate."
Justin: I love this idea. Did it work?
Patrick: It worked out so well. I think only one person actually took money for it. All the rest were happy just to talk to somebody who would listen. I said, "What do you do for scheduling? How many appointments do you see in a day?" People were telling me... The vast majority of them did scheduling on pencil and paper, or catch as catch can. They had a lot of appointments, relative to walk-ins.
They had severe no-show problems. Some of them would do appointment reminder phone calls themselves. Some of them meant to, but too many things going on in the business, never got around to doing them.
Some of them have an office manager that was supposed to do that, but because the people who are office managers at salons tend to not be the most diligent people in the world, it was haphazard. There was a huge amount of problem for it. I'm like, "Appointment Reminder. Totally going forward."
I released an MVP of it, which was just one page that showed, basically, that if you gave me your telephone number, I could...Actually, I think I'm getting my timeline wrong. I did the MVP first. Made a page that, if you gave me a telephone number, I would give you a phone call immediately. Had this voice actress, who was a college student that I hired on Fiverr, for $10, recorded basically a sales pitch for Appointment Reminder.
That said, "If you can come to your fake appointment, which is five minutes from now, please press one." Then, as soon as you pressed one, it would flash on your computer screen that you just confirmed their appointment. If they had cancelled the appointment, we could SMS you right now, so that you could reschedule someone and save that one. I showed that on my iPad to people, and asked them, during the conversation in Chicago.
I said, "Would you buy this?" Five people said yes. They were totally in at that price point. I was pitching at like $30 a month. "OK. There exists a market for this."
Justin: Five people out of how many?
Patrick: Good question. I talked to about a dozen people that day. I don't know if I actually got to the sales pitch on everybody. But I think it's less a question of five people out of how many...It's more a question of, can you even find five people in the world who will buy it?
If you can find five people, there's probably more than five people. The world is a big place. If you can't find five people, on the other hand, when you're talking to them and you've got that little crazy founder glow in your eye that people want to say "yes," just to get you out of this door.
If you can't sell someone with that, you're not going to be able to sell them with a web page. Might as well not build that. That's my take on the LEAN startup methodology for very bootstrapped startups.
Justin: Yeah. I like that, because there is...You have this theory of different ways to do customer development and LEAN. But then there's the actual practice. I'm always interested. In actual practice, what do people find? You're saying, if you can find five people that say they'll buy, the world is a big place and there's probably more people that will buy?
Patrick: Yeah. Exactly. Interestingly, I think the customer development led me a little stray, in one respect...My conception, from the time I started the project...Because I was talking to people in massage therapy practices and salons and that sort of thing, was that, an appointment is something that you, the client, go to. There is another whole market of service providers, where the service provider comes to you for the appointment.
For things like exterminators, the trades, HVAC installers, yada, yada. It turns out that they have a much more pressing need to avoid no-shows than massage therapy practice has. Because if a massage therapy practice gets someone...They flake out. Yeah, they lose revenue, but it's only about $60 of revenue and maybe they can slot in a walk-in. But if you have an HVAC company that has three guys who go out in a van to someone's house and they get locked out...
A, the company is out $200 for that truck roll. Meaning, putting the people in the van and sending them out. But B, they probably just lost out on a $2000 furnace repair job that might get done by one of the their competitors now, because people don't typically leave broken furnaces for a day.
Justin: How did you figure that out? How did you discover that need in that market?
Patrick: An exterminator or something related to that found me for just Googling for "appointment reminder." They signed up for the service. The business names was like Bob's Termite B Gone, or whatever. I thought, "Interesting, that's an exterminator would use this." It's a service that...Communication is the point of the service. It's sending SMS messages between you and your customers...Yada, yada. Obviously, "I know this guy's contact information. He gave an email address to sign up."
I said, "Hey, Bob," of Bob's Termite B Gone, "want to talk about appointments for a little while? I think I have some ideas for you." I gave him some ideas on better messaging he could use about cancellations. In return, I said, "Why does a Termite B Gone place need a appointment reminding software?" He laid out the, "Well, three guys in a van burn $200 every time they go out to a site whether I get paid or not." Like, "Oh, that's interesting." That helped me change the marketing message a little bit.
Justin: Is that a primary market you're going after now?
Patrick: That sort of thing, where the customer doesn't go the appointment, the appointment comes to the customer is probably...If you ball them up together, it's a bunch of industries. But that's probably my second largest customer group, after probably medical. Medical wasn't even scoped for version 1.0 of Appointment Reminder. Because there's this Health Information Privacy and Portability Act, I think. It's an American law about health information security standards that...
There was some technical and legal groundwork that I had to lay before I could say that I could support health care providers. But it turns out that...I won't bore your listeners with the whole story about this, because it's much more interesting for my business than for their businesses. But it turns out that there's various hacks around that. I'm in a...Well, the less said about that the better.
Justin: [laughs]
Patrick: Suffice to say, there are hospitals on Appointment Reminder right now. As a matter of fact, I think eight of the ten largest US hospitals are on Appointment Reminder. Sadly, not for all of their appointment needs, but...
Justin: Yeah. When did you launch Appointment Reminder?
Patrick: The MVP I created in maybe May of 2010, the month after quitting the day job. I launched it in December of 2010. It's been going on for just a little over two years now.
Justin: OK, in terms of your whole world of revenue, what portion of that does it represent?
Patrick: OK. We didn't mention it in the interview, so just back-tracking a little bit. I've been very transparent with many parts of my business for the last couple of years. Bingo Card Creator, for example, has a page that you can go to that will literally say what my sales are for every month for the last six years. But I'm perpetually "Will I? Won't I?" on taking investment for Appointment Reminder.
That makes it difficult for me to disclose numbers. Not in that investors will hate me if I don't disclose numbers, because it's the opposite. Most companies don't. But, basically, if I disclose numbers then they can see the numbers without having to talk to me.
If I don't disclose numbers then to get an insight into the business they have to talk to me. If they come out of the woodwork and talk to me, I basically get implicit permission to pitch them, should I ever decide to take investment for it.
I'm going to avoid saying how big Appointment Reminder is, in relation to my other businesses. Can I just mention...If you're wondering, extrapolate a little bit from the fact that it's used in eight of the top ten US hospitals.
Justin: Yeah. The market seems big. One thing I'm thinking, as I'm talking to, is the markets you've gone into...Teachers, massage therapists...There's a lot of folks that try to launch products for those groups. Not a lot of people think about launching products for exterminators.
Do you think that it's still worthwhile launching a product, for example, for teachers? Or for massage therapists? Or do you think that product people need to be going after these other markets that they might not have thought about?
Patrick: Appointment Reminder is a broad horizontal product, which happens to target, in the marketing, individual verticals, like massage therapy and whatnot. But it was never a product built by massage therapists, for massage therapists. With specific regards to elementary and high school educators, for your listeners who might be thinking of getting into building a product business. I'm going to recommend that you don't go after teachers.
Especially if you do, well, pretty much for any reason. I love teachers, I love education. I worked six years in this field. The amount of pain you go through for, like, increment of success you get is off the charts compared to working in B2B, business to business.
Businesses have a lot more money. The people who are responsible for making a purchasing decision in the business aren't spending their own money to buy your thing, where teachers typically are spending their own money to buy your thing. Teachers are very reluctant to spend 30 dollars of their own money where the office manager at a business is very not reluctant to spend 200 dollars a month of that business' money.
The top line plan for Appointment Reminder that's actually exposed on the website is $200, so that's $2,400 a year in revenue. That's about 100 bingo card sales, like a month of sales in some months, that I can get from one person who just comes to the website and signs up five minutes later, and never calls me. That doesn't even crater the approach to the bridge to the high-touch enterprise sales, where I'm talking to a hospital individually about, "Well, quote us a price if we have 10,000 patients a month."
I would recommend avoid the education market. I would tend to avoid hobbyist markets for the same reason, especially hobbyist markets with lots of overlaps with geeks, because they typically are way, way over-served. For example, again, I'm a geek. I own it. I play dungeons and dragons.
You also play dungeons and dragons, and you're thinking, "Man, there's something that can be done with a computer that hasn't been done yet for dungeons and dragons," A, I think you're probably wrong, but B, that is not a great use of your time from a financial returns perspective. Make something for boring businesses, or other underserved markets that are valuable.
One I talk about a lot is making products for women, because if you've been around a developer conference ever, you've noticed the switch in the community. People largely make things to scratch their own itches, and there being less women around who have capability of making software products, less that their itches get scratched. Some of them are, for example, in jobs that are largely female dominated, like, say, nursing and whatnot, or office managing.
There's compelling business problems that can be solved by not too difficult software, which can be worth substantial amounts of money.
Justin: Yeah. Yeah. You've talked about how you your initial taking the MVP for appointment reminder around in Chicago. What would you, so if you're just, because a lot of product people, like, people that are interested in building products. Sometimes we are people that are sitting in an office all day, or we have a life, or we might, the things we interact with, our kids go to school, so we think about teachers, we go to the massage therapists, and we go to get our hair cut, all these things.
We're often thinking about those kinds of problems, or we're thinking about our own problems. Do you have any hacks for ways you've gotten to know some problems from people in boring businesses, as you've said?
Patrick: I think being relentlessly curious and talking to people about their business problems helps on that. I have no...I consume services from, say, massage therapy practices, but I also consume pizza, that doesn't exactly make me a pizza chef or a massage therapist, but I love talking to folks for any reason.
I keep an ear open, talk to folks. People love talking about their problems. A sympathetic ear is one of the most motivational things that you can offer somebody...to just say, "Hey. You're a nurse. What's sucks about being a nurse?"
About 15 minutes talking to someone while you're waiting for your kid to get out of the doctor's appointment, or "Say, you run reception at a dental clinic? What software do you use? Do you like it?"
The answer's going to be no. "Why don't you like it? I'm just curious about your industry. Who in the company makes decisions about purchasing things?" Yadda, yadda, yadda. But just talk, talk, talk, talk, talk. You've got friends. They're probably in diverse walks of life. Talk to them about things.
My father's a real estate developer. I've been hearing his real estate development stories for the last 30 years of my life. Talk to him about, "Hey Dad. What do you do manually still in your business?" They do a heck of a lot of the data gathering that they do to source deals is, it revolves around paper maps and Googling things randomly.
There must be some way to automate that process. It would probably be worth...my father works in commercial real estate. The basically smallest deal that his company could go after is in the millions of dollars. Think of how much increasing the effectiveness of him at sourcing deals by 10 percent would be worth for that company.
Justin: Yeah. Is that the math you do? Because on one hand, you can go find a business problem, but is that the math you do when you're trying to figure out, how much could they potentially pay or how much would this be worth to them?
Patrick: Right. There's two things you can offer to any business to induce them to get into a business relationship with you, whether that's buying a product or consuming your consulting services or employing you. The first is to increase their revenue, and the second is to decrease costs. Of the two of them, increasing revenue is generally more motivational from a businessman's perspective.
I would generally tend to look for high-visibility problems that are close to the money, as opposed to "You can do inventory tracking software, which is going to save you five dollars on your next toilet paper purchase." This is probably not enough to get them to change the way that they do business.
Every business already has ossified ways that they do business right now. Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to convince them to go from their current process into using your software that they've never heard of before. You have to have a really compelling advantage over what they're doing right now.
Shaving off a buck here or a buck there is not a really compelling advantage, but plus 10 percent improvement on the effectiveness of employees that cost four or five figures a month...We make your software developers who cost $20,000 a month fully loaded, we make then 10 percent more effective. That's $2000 per developer, and you might have 30 of them, you're willing to pay a lot of money for that, and that's why a lot of software that targets software developers is all done in per seat basis by the way.
Justin: Interesting.
Patrick: Similarly, if you were thinking who in the organization to make software for. Minimum wage employees on the ground floor? Probably not as good as the folks who, A they have the authority to buy things, and B they're a bit higher in the organization, higher salaries and what not in imputed cost to their time. That's not a law of nature, it's just a rule of thumb.
Justin: I think that's a really important point. Sometimes you just identify a problem and the problem is painful...you just really want o solve this thing that's painful, but if you're going to make a business out of it, there has to be someone who's going to be willing to pay you for that. Then you have to subtract some other things.
You have to subtract your time, but also how much time and effort is it going to take to support this thing. We don't always do that math, sometimes the problem is so painful that we don't thing about how much are people willing to pay for this, and how much time would it take to support it.
Patrick: One thing that people don't appreciate enough is that there's different types of pain. One for example is pain that people know they have versus pain that people experience, but don't know that they have. There's a pain that has people searching for solutions actively, and the kind that people figure is just a cost of doing business.
You want to be solving a problem that people know they have the problem and are actively looking for solutions, rather than something that the pain is bearable, or is just considered so endemic to the condition that they are not actively trying to get better at that.
For example, among people who could buy Appointment Reminder, they have the word no show. It's a hair on fire problem for them. When I mention would you be interested if I could get rid of all your no shows or a substantial percentage of your no shows, their eyes just light up, and they actively search on Google for it.
By comparison, let's us an example from education, grade book software, it sucks. Most teachers do not wake up in the morning and say, "My grade-book software sucks." Many things about teaching suck. Grade-books are one of them. Every teacher puts up with it. I know a few people who've made grade-book software and that doesn't typically work out great for them.
Justin: This is another thing that I think is challenging. When you finally identify a pain...and you go, "This is a real pain," like it's definitely a pain, but when you start talking to people, like you've said, it's not a hair on fire issue. Even if they have the problem, why is it so hard to convince people when it's not something that they're actively searching for an answer for?
Patrick: Mind if I turn that question around a little bit? I think as developers, and as product people...We have the ability to create things, which is magical. We get a little high on our own supply sometimes, such that, "I am capable of creating this software, ergo it's going to have these awesome features, and ergo that's going to be awesome and change people's lives forever, such that they will not remember their life prior to using it."
We can stand to learn a little bit of humility and meet users where they actually are. To a certain point of view, I think that..."Why is it hard to convince people that they're in pain from these antiquated solutions that they're using that are clearly sub optimal...maybe they're not?"
Maybe we should have the humility to talk to them and to actually figure out what they genuinely want, what they think that they need and meet them there. Users, they'll make things as not most users core options. They often won't understand what's capable or what's possible like we do. Maybe they can articulate their pain but they wouldn't necessarily come to a great solution without guidance from us.
But we should definitely listen to them and be actively engaged in them in the process of creating ideas in order to make their lives better. Because ultimately, it's their life that has to get better or the product is a failure.
Justin: Mm-hmm, and I think, maybe in response to that, some people would say, "Well does that mean we're just always going to go after this low hanging fruit?" In a business, there's the things that are like hair on fire issues that you need to deal with all the time. They're a real pain and they're making your boss stressed out.
But then there's these deeper underlying issues that maybe there's not a lot of Google searches for those or whatever. Those are important. We need to deal with those underlying important issues that are not just on the surface, but deeper.
How should we respond to that? When we're building software are we always going to be just building for hair on fire issues?
Patrick: Well, it would be awesome if we could build software which would solve every educational problem in the United States. But given that most of us are makers doing this on the side, we have limited resources. We have to have an appreciation for what is reasonably possible and that's going to largely council going after things that are low hanging fruit.
Even for folks who are on the funded start up track, so they can afford to work without revenue for a couple of years on a project and try to blow up, they typically go after problems that...like, they're problems. People genuinely feel them. But they're not the problem that gets written about in a sociology book, to put it mildly.
That's partially a pragmatic answer. But in addition to it being a pragmatic answer I think there's honestly a lot of good that can be done by just solving people's pressing problems that come up all the time. Simply because if we keep knocking down all the problems that come up all the time and exposing each layer of increasingly higher fruit after the first one, then their lives are getting better all the time.
Software doesn't do one one-hundredth of a percent of what it possibly could do for most people. You can tell because most people's only use for software is email and Facebook at the moment. Even with that, email revolutionized how almost every knowledge worker worked.
Obviously you're not going to create email but you probably will create the next version of email or the next version of Facebook. Each incremental improvement that genuinely helps people out, genuinely helps people out. The scale that you can achieve with incremental improvements when delivered over the Internet, if you understand the marketing side of things too, is just absolutely incredible.
I think I did the math once. I've probably taught over two million kids a reading lesson with Bingo Card Creator which, if I was a teacher working in a school teaching 30 kids at once, I don't think I could teach two million student lessons in an entire career. But I'm able to do that while sleeping thanks to Bingo Card Creator scaling so well...
Justin: Yeah
Patrick: ...and it doesn't scale so well unlike the Facebook [indecipherable 68:33] version. It's just a website can work when I'm not in. If you can...Obviously Bingo Card Creator is one of the most trivial apps I could possibly think of. That's partially why I picked it. If I'd known then what I know now, I probably would have gone with something a bit larger in scope for my first business, not 10 orders of magnitude larger in scope.
Justin: I think we're going to wind down pretty quick here, but I'd like to ask maybe a couple of more questions. Then, if you have anything else you'd like to share before you go. I think one thing that we didn't touch on here that would be interesting to cover maybe in the future is knowledge products. There's software products and sometimes it'd be interesting exploring that. But maybe we could do that another time.
Patrick: Yeah. I think that is a deep topic which I've gotten interested in recently. We could definitely talk for an hour on that one too. Why don't we table that for maybe next time?
Justin: Sure. Let's close with this. I live in Canada, so for me this is not as big of an issue. But for people that live in other parts of the world, how important is the American market right now for building software products?
If you are in Asia or Europe or Africa or somewhere else, would you still build a product for the American market? Or would you look at your local market? Or would you look at maybe...Maybe there's markets I'm not even aware of. Like maybe Europe is doing really well right now. Internationally, what do you think is a good starting place for people building products?
Patrick: This is a question near and dear to my heart considering I'm in Japan. I'll tell you all my products target primarily American companies or American customers. One of the reasons for that is that while my Japanese is pretty good my ability to write marketing copy in Japanese is not that great. Largely I'm selling to the people who I know how to sell to.
Another reason is that there's significant differences in how the software adoption cycle works at Japanese companies versus American companies. I won't give you the entire list of how Japanese companies are such [indecipherable 71:04] pathological, and how they do decision making, but suffice it to say that they don't really sign up for software as a service with their credit card after reading a website which is critical to me.
I end up selling to American companies. But partly that's because I am a foreigner living in Japan. If I was a Japanese person I would probably sell to Japanese companies instead. While it's true that America is the largest software market and is a few years ahead of the game with regards to getting on new innovations like say the software as a service model.
American companies spend a lot more on software as a service product [indecipherable 71:45] absolute basis on a per company basis than companies in other countries do. In say Japan, it's not really a...it's getting there but it isn't really a well understood thing yet. Anyhow, even with that being the case, targeting your local market has a lot to recommend it.
Just like you don't go into an overfished pond like D&D gamers, the U.S. is an overfished pond relative to...well, a heavily fished pond relative to any other country in the world. There's a lot of software that does...say, accounting and whatnot, that just won't work for an office in, say, Canada, because it's built around American accounting standards and the way American customers expect things to work, and not for how Canadian folks expect things to work.
Similarly, a lot of ideas that would be, "Oh my God, a invoicing app? We've got like a hundred of them," in Japan, there's only one invoicing app worth talking about. It's called MakeLeaps. A friend of mine runs it. It's a ridiculously mature market in the United States, and FreshBooks has sewn it up, and then there's other competitors, but in Japan, it's wide open, and the conversation is less, "Do you use FreshBooks, or do you use one of the competitors?"
But it's, "Are we ever going to use software for invoicing?" Even with a software that might not be as mature as FreshBooks is, software has a lot to recommend over pencil and paper, which is the primary competitor for MakeLeaps, so MakeLeaps is doing really, really well.
Justin: Interesting. If you're in one of those markets that's not the States, you might, say, consider maybe offering something that's not being offered yet. What about...
Patrick: I think there's absolutely no shame in taking something that works in the American market and bringing a version to your market, for example. OK, don't copy Bingo Card Creator, and I'm not saying that because I don't want the competition. I'm just saying because it's not a great, wonderful use of your time.
Hypothetically, if you're an Australian, the way that Bingo works is different in Australia than is in the United States, and most Australians can't use my Bingo Card Creator. You could hypothetically make Bingo Card Creator, because you know Bingo Card Creator, as a business works, from seeing it work for me, ergo, it should probably work in Australia.
Again, don't do it, but that's an example, where if you see a FreshBooks working in America, then FreshBooks probably should work in Japan, too, if someone would just go to the...Invoicing software should work in Japan, and if you see...What's that German company that their shtick is, they take American startups and clone them for Germany, and eventually get acquired?
A lot of people wag their fingers at them and say, "That's not innovative," but given that American companies don't typically launch to the entire world at the same, I think that does accelerate the adoption process of that technology by the German audience, and other than an irrational preference for innovative business models, I don't see how that's bad in any way.
Justin: That's right.
Patrick: Don't be afraid to use an idea that has been done before, even if it's been done in your market too. I'm certainly not the first Bingo Card Creator software that came out. Probably the only one that's actually good but there you go.
Justin: [laughs] Yeah. Well thanks so much for your time Patrick. I really [laughs] enjoyed the conversation. Glad we could make it happen.
Patrick: Yeah. I am too. Hopefully it was useful for some of your listeners.
Justin: Yeah. I like how we were really able to get a lot of your back story in the first part of our conversation. I felt like the second half has a lot of just really practical tips that people could walk away with. Both are important that we get the context and the story, we get to know the person but then we can also walk away with some practical things to apply. Is there anything else that you want to say quickly or leave us with, before we go?
Patrick: Sure. Well, I may as well give people some links to take a look at. My blog is at Kalzumeus.com/blog. We'll link that up in the comments to the interview.
Justin: Yeah.
Patrick: I have a email list that you can get on at training.kalzumeus.com. I send out an email every week or two about software and software marketing topics. This is my business but it's also my hobby. I really love talking about software and I can basically have unlimited propensity to do so. If you ever want to talk about it, drop me an email. My email address is patrick@kalzumeus.com.
Justin: Perfect. Well I've certainly enjoyed talking to you. I'm going to have to have you back on the show again sometime in the future. Maybe we can talk about information products next time.
Patrick: Sure. I would love to do that. Thanks very much Justin. It was an honor to be invited.

]]>http://productpeople.tv/2012/12/26/patio11-part2/feed/3customer development,lean,product developmentWant to build a software product that actually earns income? - In this (Part 2) episode Patrick McKenzie (Patio11) shares specific tactics for researching a market and finding a problem to solve. Listen now. Highlights - Want to build a software product that actually earns income?
In this (Part 2) episode Patrick McKenzie (Patio11) shares specific tactics for researching a market and finding a problem to solve. Listen now.
Highlights
Don't think up a cool product idea, go and spend months developing it, and then try to find customers. It won't work.
Instead, go out and talk to people and see if you can find 5 people who will buy it.
Trick for interviewing people in potential markets: tell them you'll pay them their normal rate, but instead of getting their service, you get to ask them questions about their industry (Patio11 interviewed massage therapists and stylists this way)
Be relentlessly curious: ask people about their business problems.
"Businesses have a lot more money. The people who are responsible for making a purchasing decision in the business aren't spending their own money; the office manager at a business is very not reluctant to spend 200 dollars a month of that business' money."
Avoid the education and hobbyist markets: Patrick loves Dungeons and Dragons, but doesn't think you can make much income by building software products for D&D players.
"There's different types of pain: you want to be solving a problem where people know they have the problem and are actively looking for solutions, rather than something that the pain is bearable, or is just considered so endemic to the condition that they are not actively trying to get better at that."
Have the humility to talk to people and find out what they really want.
Show notes
Patrick's blog: www.kalzumeus.com/blog
Patrick's training site: training.kalzumeus.com
Bingo Card Creator
Appointment Reminder
Email Patrick: patrick@kalzumeus.com
Transcript
(courtesy of Patio11: thanks so much!)
Justin: Huh. That is so fascinating. Basically, in 2010, you were able to stop working at the day job and just live on product income.
Patrick: Right.
Justin: Was there a portion of that that was consulting, as well, or was that all, you quit because you were making enough on the product?
Patrick: I quit because I was making enough on the product. But there's an asterisk there with regards to consulting stuff. Bingo Card Creator is highly seasonal, because it tracks the school year. Sales go down every summer. I was quitting in April.
I thought, OK, I know I'm fine until the school year ends. Then, summer's going to be interesting. Either I'm going to be burning savings or having to subsist on credit cards until the school year starts up again.
Justin: Yeah.
Patrick: But when I went home Christmas 2009, I met a buddy of mine who I had become acquaintances with over Hacker News. My buddy's name is Thomas. He's a security consultant who works in Chicago.
He knows that I'm pretty good on this online marketing stuff that I've been blogging about for the last couple of years. Oh, if it wasn't obvious, I'd kept up a blog from the day I started working on Bingo Card Creator in 2006, through 2010 and continuing through now.
Justin: That's at kalzumeus.com.
Patrick: Right. Kalzumeus.com. It moved around a bit, but it's there now.
Justin: OK.
Patrick: Anyhow, so there's this guy in Hacker News who was very smart. We're mutual admiration society of each other's comments, and he was in Chicago where my family's from. I said, "Hey, I'm coming home for Christmas, do you want to get coffee?" My only plan for getting coffee was, why don't we talk about Hacker News threads and laugh? I'm a geek. I'm very, very geeky.
Thomas says, "That sounds like an excellent plan." We go to a coffee shop. He says, "Hey, this coffee shop happens to be under my office. Do you want to come up to my office?"
We go to his office. Says, "Hey, why don't we drink our coffee in that conference room over there with my VP?" Thomas, who founded the security consultancy with a few other guys and his VP come into the conference room and they lock the door at me.Justin Jacksonno45:54EP05: How Patio11 built a product business (part 1)http://productpeople.tv/2012/12/19/patio11-part1/
http://productpeople.tv/2012/12/19/patio11-part1/#commentsWed, 19 Dec 2012 12:00:48 +0000http://productpeople.tv/?p=41Update: Listen to Part 2!

Part 1 of our interview with Patio11 (Patrick McKenzie) where you’ll hear how he actually learned to program with graph paper, and how he built his first product business with $60.

Show notes:

Transcript

Justin Jackson: Welcome to Product People, a podcast focused on great products and the people who make them. Today we have a very special guest. Patrick McKenzie, also known as patio11, is here on the program. In our listener survey, people asked for Patrick over and over again, and so we thought we should have him on. Patrick's been making a name for himself at his excellent blog, Kalzumeus.com. Welcome to the show, Patrick.
Patrick McKenzie: Hi. Thanks so much for having me.
Justin: Just a note. Kyle is home with a cold, and I'm battling a little bit of a cold, and it sounds like Patrick is as well, so this will be the sick episode of Product People.
Patrick: Hopefully sick in a good way.
Justin: That's right.
Patrick: They still use that expression in America...
Justin: Oh, yeah. Yeah. I hope it will be sick in a good way. Patrick, I want to start by getting your story. Where did you grow up, and when did you first get into computers?
Patrick: Wow. OK, way back in memory lane. I grew up in the general vicinity of Chicago in the United States. I've been in computers for quite a while. My family didn't really grow up all that wealthy. That's an understatement. We were in a not-so-great district of the Chicago public schools, and one year IBM donated them a computer. I discovered that there was this thing called computer games on the computer, and really liked that, but the teachers were not so happy with me monopolizing the computer to play computer games when there was only one in the school.
Justin: [laughs]
Patrick: I went into the library and got this book, "How to Make Your Own Computer Games," and it taught the BASIC programming language. I taught myself the BASIC programming language, which was a little inconvenient because I didn't have a computer actually capable of running BASIC. It explained how the BASIC language was interpreted, and I got a bunch of graph paper to represent the memory in a computer and the display, and...
Justin: You're kidding me.
Patrick: I'm not kidding you. I wrote my own programs and then hand simulated them for fun.
Justin: [laughs] On graph paper?
Patrick: On graph paper.
Justin: Oh my goodness.
Patrick: One frame at a time, draw the dots, and then go to the next frame, and draw the dots. You can tell I'm a very special kid, right?
Justin: [laughs]
Patrick: Anyhow, sometime around high school-ish...No, maybe late middle school, my family moved to a different neighborhood. Things were looking a little on the up and up. We got ourselves our own computer that was DOS three-point-something back then. I started playing around with it, did my first real programming with a computer that would actually run instructions.
About the freshman year of high school or so, I tried cutting my teeth on C. That was a mistake. That did not kill my love for computers. I went to college, studied Java, became a...If you've ever read Joel Schlotzsky's article about Java schools, and how they destroy people's love of and talent for programming, I was totally that kid.
Around the time I was going to University, my father had been self-employed for most of his life, and things were not going all that great. He and my mother told me in no uncertain terms that I was to give up any entrepreneurial ambitions, and get a nice, safe job at a big mega corp. I was reading the Wall Street Journal, and the Wall Street Journal is very big on, "All the programming jobs are going to India and China, and there will be none left in America."
I was majored in computer science at college, but I thought, "Oh dear, I'm never going to get a nice, safe job at a big mega-corp like Microsoft if all I can do is computer programming, so I'll have to do one other thing. My idea was that if you play the Venn diagram game, the intersection of people who can do computer programming and any other one hard thing should be very small.
Justin: Yeah.
Patrick: Even if there is a million folks graduating from Indian programming schools every year, the intersection of them who can do that other hard thing is small, and there, I will get my nice, safe job at Microsoft. I thought, well, we trade billions of dollars a year of software, but most Japanese people don't speak English. Most Americans don't speak Japanese.
Justin: Yeah. Some Americans can't speak English either.
Patrick: Yeah.
Justin: [laughs]
Patrick: If I became the one computer programming Japanese person who graduated in America in the year 2004, then I would have a nice safe job at...I had it picked out. I was going to be the product manager for the Japanese version of MS Excel. That's like my end career goal.
Justin: Interesting.
Patrick: I graduated university with a degree in Computer Science and a degree in East Asian Studies, which is basically a way to say Japanese minus Japanese literature. I thought, am I good enough to enter Microsoft right now? I thought, well, this is partially a self-confidence issue, but I thought, I'm probably not good enough to work at Microsoft yet. I will go to Japan for a few years and work in an international exchange program, firm up my business Japanese, then come back and work at Microsoft.
When the international exchange program found out I had an engineering degree, they placed me at the Prefectural Technology Incubator in Gifu Prefecture, which is Japan's answer to Kansas. Instead of corn, there's rice, and instead of white people, there's Japanese people.
Justin: I got you.
Patrick: Yeah, not exactly a cosmopolitan, Silicon Valley type of area. Anyhow, so there's five translators at this technological incubator, and approximately one translator worth of work to do. I spent the three years of my contract with a lot of thumb-fiddling, and after fiddling my thumbs for a year, I went up to the bosses and said, "All right, we've got a research and development group here. I have an engineering degree. I can theoretically program Java as well as a graduate from a Java school can. Will you let me work in the R&D group?"
They let me work in the R&D group for a little while, did some fairly inconsequential stuff. We wanted to do a collaborative spam filter. Prior to there being Gmail and whatnot that had Bayesian filters that were filtered over many people's inputs, there were Bayesian filters on a per-account basis. We thought, if you could share the accounts together, that would be awesome.
It didn't turn out working out that well. But anyhow, concurrent with working there, I wasn't really loving working at the company. Not the company, the incubator. It was pretty obvious that there was no career path forward for me in technical translation. I have a funny story about that. I'll tell you the exact moment that I learned technical translation was not for me.
Justin: OK, I'd love to hear it.
Patrick: Obviously, they train you on this thing. You go to professional conferences, you hear about the ethics of the profession, yada yada yada. One of the ethical things about being a translator/interpreter is that you are not supposed to be part of the conversation.
You are facilitating the conversation from other people. You aren't supposed to interject your opinions, and you are supposed to translate things, exactly, to the word, as they are said, preserving as much of the nuance as humanly possible.
Justin: Got it.
Patrick: I was once translating for the governor of Gifu Prefecture, and there was an international meet and greet, at our technology incubator, with the governor of Gifu Prefecture and the vice president for business development of IBM Asia. Obviously, she's a bit of a bigwig, but she's also a bit of a bigwig who's also a very pretty blonde woman.
Justin: [laughs]
Patrick: She was quite popular with some members of the governor's party, including the governor's chief aide-de-camp, who's a 65-year-old parody of a sketchy old Japanese guy.
Justin: [laughs]
Patrick: I was introducing the aide-de-camp to the vice president of business development for IBM Asia. She said, "Hello. How do you do?" and he said, "You've got a great rack."
Justin: [laughs]
Patrick: I'm like, I can't possibly translate that because this is going to blow up in my employer's face, so I said, "He expresses the opinion that your dress is very flattering on you."
Justin: [laughs]
Patrick: I later asked a professional translator at one of our development courses, "What should I have done there?" She said, "You should have said, in exactly that tone of voice, "Yeah got a great rack.""
Justin: [laughs]
Patrick: I thought, well, I'm done. I can't do this job. I could not bring myself to do that. Anyhow, my three-year contract ends up...oh, in the middle of things there. I'm very under challenged at work. We've got five translators to do one translator's worth of job.
Maybe we've got two live events a year where I have to do interpretation, but translation, I've got maybe two days of work a month. The rest of the time is spending a whole lot of time on the Internet, and on Slashdot, and on the Business of Software forums, on Joel's [indecipherable 09:04] site. Taste of things to come, by the way.
Anyhow, I'm spending a whole lot of time on the Internet, learning a little bit about search engine optimization, and every other random topic I decide to read about, but I was really feeling like I was stagnating, career-wise, so I thought, maybe I can dust off that entrepreneurial ambition and do some side project just to get my feet wet. But the plan is still, after I get through this Japan thing, I'm going to go back to Microsoft. Or go to Microsoft. I've never been there.
Justin: Yeah.
Patrick: I was always asking my bosses for more work. This international exchange program that I was on has division which was translators, and has another division which is Americans, Canadians, UK people, et cetera, who teach English in Japanese schools. The vast majority of them can't speak a word of Japanese.
There's 200 of them in this prefecture, and we have an email list that goes out to everybody, for basically life support, like, "How do I teach better?" "I'm having this issue with my landlord. I don't understand what he's saying." "I have this paperwork I need to file at city hall, but it's all in Japanese. Can you help me?" Yada yada.
Justin: Got it.
Patrick: Because I can actually understand a bit of Japanese culture, because I've been studying it for five years at this point, can speak Japanese and can read Japanese, I've been encouraged by my bosses to stay on this mailing list like it's my job, because I have very little to do at the actual job. One day, someone says that she wants to play Bingo with her class tomorrow.
Justin: Aah.
Patrick: Wants to find a way to make Bingo cards which is faster than making them by hand. Being a somewhat smart-alecky person, I reply-all to the email list, and said, "There's this website, www.google.com, and if you type in "Bingo card creator software" and hit enter, you'll get a list of 10 blue links. The top one is the one you want.
You'll be able to download software that makes Bingo cards." She writes to me a reply back, "Yeah, I tried that, dummy, and it didn't work." I actually followed my own advice, and looked at the software available for creating Bingo cards, and it was just god-awful horrible. Could not possibly work for a teacher.
The quality of the output was cruddy, and you had to manually do things for each Bingo card, which defeats the purpose of making 40 Bingo cards at once.
Justin: That's right.
Patrick: I spent a day just mocking up the world's worst swing app. This was ungodly. It was just one text field where you would type your stuff in, and then it would dump 25 html files into your desktop.
Justin: OK. [laughs]
Patrick: You would highlight all of the html files and hit control P and Internet Explorer would print them all for you.
Justin: [laughs]
Patrick: That was version zero of Bingo Card creator. At the end of the day I jarred it up, put it on my University web hosting account, sent out a link to everybody saying, "Hey, there was this question earlier about creating bingo cards. There isn't a good way to do it, so I made one. You can go here and download it and follow these quick instructions to get past my inability to do printing in Java. Yeah, things will work out great."
Justin: Yeah.
Patrick: Go home and I play World of Warcraft for the evening, which was my custom at the time.
Justin: Yeah.
Patrick: I come back the next morning, and I expected there to be like three emails in my inbox like usual, and there were actually 60. Thirty of them were, "I tried your bingo card creating thing, and this is the best thing ever. Thank you, thank you, thank you."
Thirty of them were, "I tried your bingo card creating thing. It sucks. It doesn't run on my machine. What's Java anyhow? You have to get this working today because I want to try this with the class this weekend."
Justin: [laughs]
Patrick: A few weeks later I was thinking, "What could I possibly do for a business that I could actually do when I'm employed and I could execute in a reasonable amount of time because I don't want to get a few weeks into this and lose interest and that is within my very limited skills as a programmer?"
I thought, "Well, that bingo site, I know I can program it because I did version 0.0 of it in under a day. Out of the list of maybe 200 people in central Japan, 60 of them were moved enough by it to write me about it, then there must be a market for this."
Justin: That's right.
Patrick: I told my plan to my father. I said, "All right, here's the plan. I'm going to make this bingo thing. I'm going to put it on the website. I'm going to sell it over PayPal, and I'm going to drive traffic to it with ad boards and search engine optimization which was this thing I've been reading about for a year and a half but hadn't ever done."
My father said, "You should just come back to America and get a good job." "No, no, this will work. I'm going to invest one video game worth of money in it, so $60, and I will start selling it a week from now." My dad, who has been in business for 15 years by himself is thinking, "$60 of capital, one week time to market, this is absolutely crazy. Not going to happen."
Justin: Yeah.
Patrick: A week later I do, indeed, launch with a website created in notepad, a logo that was created by a buddy of mine at Incubator, and the world's second worst Java swing app that does bingo card creation.
Justin: [laughs]
Patrick: I built it and nobody came. I thought, "Hmm, OK, what's the plan for marketing it? I don't know anything about marketing, but I do know that search engine thing I've been reading about for a year. If I fill a whole in the Internet, then Google will have to send me people."
Since I've been dealing with English teachers, I know there's this thing that English teachers care about called adult sight words. It's a list of about 200 words grouped up into five grade levels created by an English pedagogist in the 1930s that says, "You should basically know these words on seeing them."
Teachers hear about it in teaching school and they know they need to teach it to kids, but they don't necessary know what the words are, for first grade. They weren't on the Internet anywhere. I went down to the library, grabbed a book, copied out the list of the Dolch Sight Words into a per-grade list and put it on my website.
I said, "Hey, if you're looking for Dolch Sight Words, you probably want to have a [indecipherable 15:19] activity with your kids. Why don't you play Dolch Sight Words Bingo, which you can conveniently create with this Bingo Card Creator? Here's the download link to the free trial." Got that done about a week into the business. A week later I had a, "You've got money email from PayPal." My first sale. He actually got a refund, actually.
It was a very rough version 1.0. It could only print to the default printer, among other things, if you had two printers attached to your computer. My solution for you was unplugging one of them. It would print to the one that was still attached. Because I didn't know how to do printer dialog at the time.
Justin: I see. How much were you charging at the time?
Patrick: This is the most consequential piece of advice I got from the Joel [indecipherable 16:03] business software forums, prior to launching. I said, "I'm thinking of charging either $15, $20 or $25. Or a few pennies below them. I'm concerned which I should go.
I don't really feel that it's worth more than $15. It's cruddy software written by a bad engineer that does just one thing." This gentleman who...I really owe a lot to him. He says, "Charge $25 and go higher after people start buying it."
He says engineers always under-price what they make. This is something that I found true and true and true again, in the last seven years. Anyhow, I went with 25. A person who I did not know paid me $25. I'm like, "Wow. That's amazing." Then the next month, about $200 of sales. These guys did not ask for refunds.
I spent the next couple of months slowly improving the software, trying to figure out any of the marketing thing. I tried posting on forums. That was totally ineffective. I tried selling it on eBay. That was totally ineffective. I got to the end of the year, and just the one article on Dolch Sight Words had sold $1000 and change of software.
Wow. I just continued doing that. The plan was never really to quit my job and do a Bingo card creator full-time. It was just my funny little hobby that had replaced World of Warcraft. I was having fun and learning some stuff. The plan was still, get a nice job at a megacorp.
Justin: What did your dad say? After that first week, and your first month, you had $200, and the first year, what...
Patrick: Six months later, I said, "Yeah, I sold $2000 worth of Bingo Card Creator." He's like, "Wow. That's amazing. I would never have expected it to sell anything." This happens every six months. He apologizes to me again for ever doubting me. I totally don't hold it against him. It does sound like a wild and crazy plan. Even knowing that it worked, it sounds like a wild and crazy plan, especially if you have no tech or Internet background.
Justin: That's right.
Patrick: Anyhow, I got done with my contract at the incubator, and the life plan was still get a job at Microsoft, but I thought, I really love living in this little neck of the woods in Gifu, in central Japan. I want to live here a little while longer, so I'm going to try to get a job at a Japanese company, because there's no American companies in this neck of the woods. I didn't want to move out to Tokyo and get a job at one of the megacorps there, because that would require moving to Tokyo. Tokyo's just a little bit too big of a city for me.
Justin: OK. How big of a city are you in right now?
Patrick: It's 150,000 people, theoretically, but it really has a small town vibe to it.
Justin: OK.
Patrick: When I'm walking down to the train station someone will come up to me and just say, "Hi," ask, "Where are you from?" yada, yada, yada.
Justin: Yeah, OK.
Patrick: Anyhow, so in the course of my various dealings at the incubator they loaned me out to their incubated companies and said, "We've got this technical translator here. He will translate absolutely anything you give him for free."
Justin: [laughs]
Patrick: One of the companies had 3,000 PowerPoint slides of documentation for CAD software...
Justin: Oh, my goodness.
Patrick: ...that they wanted translated from Japanese to English. That was two very long months of excruciating work.
Justin: Oh, my goodness.
Patrick: They took me out to a dinner at the end of that just to say, "Thank you."
Justin: Oh, that's nice.
Patrick: When I got done with the contract with the technology incubator, I went to the company that had asked me to do the CAD translation and said, "Hey, I want to stay in Japan a little while longer, and I was wondering if you knew anyone in this neighborhood who needed a bilingual engineer?"
He says, "What do you...you talk about this?" Then I get a phone call from him three days later, and he just tells me, "I need you to come to this station in Nagoya. Be wearing a business suit. We're going to talk to a guy I know." I figured it was just "we're going to be talking to a guy I know."
We get to the meeting place. They invite me to their office, and it dawned on me only 30 minutes into the wait, 30 minutes into it, that I was actually at a job interview, but it was the weirdest job interview ever.
Justin: OK.
Patrick: Because I did not understand the...so A, my contact with them was there and doing almost all the talking, and I was doing no talking at my own job interview. I was slow on the uptake that I was actually at a job interview, and after I figured it out it was a job interview, I was not reading the signals right on how it was actually progressing.
Towards the end of it they asked me if I had any questions, and I said, "Guys, throw me a bone here. I'm not reading the signals right. Are you interested in hiring me at all?" They said, "Oh, well, we'd already made the decision to hire you before we met you because we owe this guy a favor, but we just wanted to meet you."
Justin: [laughs]
Patrick: That blew my mind. I've since been told by Americans that, wow, those crazy Japanese people, they do hiring totally differently than we do, but as I've grown older and wiser I think a lot of the jobs in America are passed in similar ways.
Justin: That's right.
Patrick: Through private networks, and you've scratched your back. I'll scratch yours through mentorships, that sort of thing.
Justin: That's right, yeah.
Patrick: I started working at a Japanese megacorp as a salaryman, and I suppose that term needs a bit of explanation. A salaryman is basically committed body and soul to their company from the point where they join it, typically right out of college, until they retire, typically at age 65 or 70.
Justin: Wow.
Patrick: The traditional Japanese ethic for a salary man is that you work incredibly hard on behalf of the company and in return the company takes care of you in every possible way. They shield you from every risk. You will never be fired. You will get a three percent raise every year.
You will be promoted at the same time everyone else in your class gets promoted regardless of your performance, and oh, BTW, you'll probably be pulling 100-hour weeks, sometimes six, seven days a week. You'll be doing it for a salary, which is, if you're an engineer is about a third the salary that American engineers make. But this is the business you have chosen and you understand this going into it, because it's a well-understood cultural system in Japan.
Justin: Wow.
Patrick: Having been around the block before I knew eyes wide open what it was going to be like. We had at the job interview a question. They asked, "We're hiring you as a salaryman. Do you understand what that means?" I said, "Yep." They said, "Are you planning on being with this company until you retire?"
I said, "Well, candidly, I'm an American. I can't promise I'm going to be in Japan for the next 40 years so I don't know if I can promise that." They said, "Well, we're taking a big risk hiring the first foreign employee of this company. Can you promise us that you'll be here for four years?"
I said, "Four years is a long time for a young guy." I think I was 24 when I started the job. "I can do two or three, and I'll promise you we'll shake on that that I won't leave until two or three years are up." "All right, we can do that." They said, "Do you have any needs that you need?"
I said, "Well, obviously you've never worked with an American before. I've never worked for a Japanese megacorp before. I think we're both going to be adjusting a little bit in this relationship. I know that your expectations with regards to availability are a little bit different than Americans, and I'm just curious. About what time do people go home from the company?"
The boss looks a little uncomfortable for a minute. He's like, "Well, I know there are people who go home at seven thirty or so."
Justin: Oh, my goodness.
Patrick: I successfully read the hint there. "There are people who go home at seven thirty." Women go home at seven thirty, ergo the men go home at nine o'clock for the early guys. I can afford to go home at ten and not look like the lazy American.
Justin: Oh, my goodness.
Patrick: For the first couple years I was generally going home sometime around ten, and then that slipped until twelve, and then in crunch time it slipped until three.
Justin: Oh, my goodness. Are they more productive?
Patrick: No. No, absolutely the opposite of the case. There are a lot of time wasted in meetings and a whole lot of staring at the wall reading newspapers, yada, yada, yada. The departmental standard is basically six hours of work in a 16-hour day, and I made the mistake early on of working to the limit of my capability. I got taken aside by the senior engineers and said, "Hey, Patrick. You got to pace yourself."
Justin: [laughs]
Patrick: "You're going to be here for many years. You got to understand you don't want to make the older engineers look bad by being too much of a go-getter. Work with due deliberation. Spend a little more time not coding up so many features. Maybe you should write a bit of documentation. Make sure you write it really well, yada, yada."
Justin: I see. Yeah. Yeah.
Patrick: Oh, boy, Japanese megacorps, they are such a pathological work environment, it's crazy. Anyhow, so I'm an engineer at this Japanese megacorp, and theoretically I'm a systems engineer, and I was coding on the web framework that they used to make systems for Japanese Universities [indecipherable 26:05] .
I'm doing this until 10 o'clock every night, and I came home and worked on Bingo Card Creator a little bit in the evenings, and so the only things I could do for Bingo Card Creator were the ones that could be done in about five hours a week, so basically answering emails, and I figured out how to do AB testing and set up an AB test on my weekends then wait for a week, and then finish the AB test on the next weekend, see what the results were, and then make a change to my website on the basis of the AB test.
For any of you who don't understand that jargon, an AB test means you create two versions of the website. You randomly partition visitors to the website into one of two groups. Show them version A or version B. It can be the case that having a particular headline or a particular button copier, that sort of thing, increases people's propensity to do business with you, or to download the free trial, or to do some other action you care about.
I was basically getting a five percent win in increase in conversion rates, increase in trial downloads, increase in sales. Five percent win here, and a two percent win there, and I just continued doing that for a bunch of years.
Justin: What was the attraction? Like why even do...like you were working insane hours. Why work on Bingo Card Creator at all?
Patrick: Because it kept me sane.
Justin: OK.
Patrick: It was my...so I quit World of Warcraft, because way not enough time to do it and work at the company, and I grew a lot as an engineer while I was working at the megacorp, but I didn't have much...young folks in Japanese companies are not given a whole lot of latitude as to picking their assignments, shall we say.
Like I had learned how to do a bit of web programming and wanted to do Ruby on Rails and suggested, "Let's do some work with Ruby on Rails" at the day job. They're like, "Ah, yeah, no." I'm like, "Well, I've still got Bingo Card Creator. I can redo my website on Ruby on Rails. No one can say no to me on that," and so I did that.
Justin: This gave you some autonomy while you're working for this big company. They would just assign you whatever projects they wanted, but with Bingo Card Creator you could...you really could do whatever you wanted as long as you could do it in a short amount of time.
Patrick: Right. It kept me sane. It gave me something to look forward to at 10 o'clock every day when I would get off work, because then I could pull out my Kindle and say...well, so by the time I get home at midnight or past midnight, Americans are starting to wake up, and I would typically have a PayPal message saying somebody had bought my software and that would..."Yay."
Justin: Yeah.
Patrick: One night so the last train from Nagoya leaves at twelve-thirty AM, or PM whatever...30 minutes after midnight. I missed it. I was still at the day job. Left the day job at two. Not so much of a day job anymore. I went to the all night Denny's to get some dinner. Got dinner, got to a hotel at about two forty-five.
Checked my email for customer support inquires. There were none. Then I woke up at seven forty-five in the morning in time to catch a quick shower and go back to the office without returning home at any point.
Justin: Oh, my goodness.
Patrick: I checked my Kindle again for any customer support inquiries, because I was very serious about getting back to people within a day. There was just a bunch of mail from, "You've got money from PayPal." I clicked to through the math and figured I made more money when I was sleeping for five hours than I had the 19 hours previously at the day job.
Justin: Interesting.
Patrick: I thought, "What the heck am I doing this for?" There was a lot going on in my private life. The Bingo Card Creator was getting to the point where it was routinely exceeding my salary. I made the decision to quit the day job, and eventually did so in the...let's see.
I told my bosses I was quitting right around Christmas 2009 and quit as of April first, 2010. That was, what, four-ish years after starting Bingo Card Creator? That was...I launched on July first, 2006 so, yeah.
Justin: Interesting. Wow.
Patrick: By that point it was pretty obvious that at some point in the interim I had updated my plan for Microsoft to...I was a little less enamored with Microsoft. I really loved working with Open Source technologies after working the Java stack, which I didn't like, but I loved the [indecipherable 30:45] versus working with the MS and working with the Rails stack, which I really enjoyed.
I thought, "I won't work for Microsoft. I'll work through Google." I went to the Google job site and had product manager, Japan-focused products, circled out in red on a piece of paper that I'd put in my desk drawer to remind me of what the goal was. When I got done with my day job, I'm like, "OK, should I go apply to Google now?" I thought, "Well, this entrepreneurship bug, this has been really, really fun. I think I'll continue doing that." I did.

]]>http://productpeople.tv/2012/12/19/patio11-part1/feed/6patio11,product developmentUpdate: Listen to Part 2! - Part 1 of our interview with Patio11 (Patrick McKenzie) where you'll hear how he actually learned to program with graph paper, and how he built his first product business with $60. Show notes: Patrick's blog: www.kalzumeus.Update: Listen to Part 2!
Part 1 of our interview with Patio11 (Patrick McKenzie) where you'll hear how he actually learned to program with graph paper, and how he built his first product business with $60.
Show notes:
Patrick's blog: www.kalzumeus.com/blog
Patrick's training site: training.kalzumeus.com
Bingo Card Creator
Email Patrick: patrick@kalzumeus.com
Transcript
(courtesy of Patio11: thanks so much!)
Justin Jackson: Welcome to Product People, a podcast focused on great products and the people who make them. Today we have a very special guest. Patrick McKenzie, also known as patio11, is here on the program. In our listener survey, people asked for Patrick over and over again, and so we thought we should have him on. Patrick's been making a name for himself at his excellent blog, Kalzumeus.com. Welcome to the show, Patrick.
Patrick McKenzie: Hi. Thanks so much for having me.
Justin: Just a note. Kyle is home with a cold, and I'm battling a little bit of a cold, and it sounds like Patrick is as well, so this will be the sick episode of Product People.
Patrick: Hopefully sick in a good way.
Justin: That's right.
Patrick: They still use that expression in America...
Justin: Oh, yeah. Yeah. I hope it will be sick in a good way. Patrick, I want to start by getting your story. Where did you grow up, and when did you first get into computers?
Patrick: Wow. OK, way back in memory lane. I grew up in the general vicinity of Chicago in the United States. I've been in computers for quite a while. My family didn't really grow up all that wealthy. That's an understatement. We were in a not-so-great district of the Chicago public schools, and one year IBM donated them a computer. I discovered that there was this thing called computer games on the computer, and really liked that, but the teachers were not so happy with me monopolizing the computer to play computer games when there was only one in the school.
Justin: [laughs]
Patrick: I went into the library and got this book, "How to Make Your Own Computer Games," and it taught the BASIC programming language. I taught myself the BASIC programming language, which was a little inconvenient because I didn't have a computer actually capable of running BASIC. It explained how the BASIC language was interpreted, and I got a bunch of graph paper to represent the memory in a computer and the display, and...
Justin: You're kidding me.
Patrick: I'm not kidding you. I wrote my own programs and then hand simulated them for fun.
Justin: [laughs] On graph paper?
Patrick: On graph paper.
Justin: Oh my goodness.
Patrick: One frame at a time, draw the dots, and then go to the next frame, and draw the dots. You can tell I'm a very special kid, right?
Justin: [laughs]
Patrick: Anyhow, sometime around high school-ish...No, maybe late middle school, my family moved to a different neighborhood. Things were looking a little on the up and up. We got ourselves our own computer that was DOS three-point-something back then. I started playing around with it, did my first real programming with a computer that would actually run instructions.
About the freshman year of high school or so, I tried cutting my teeth on C. That was a mistake. That did not kill my love for computers. I went to college, studied Java, became a...If you've ever read Joel Schlotzsky's article about Java schools, and how they destroy people's love of and talent for programming, I was totally that kid.
Around the time I was going to University, my father had been self-employed for most of his life, and things were not going all that great. He and my mother told me in no uncertain terms that I was to give up any entrepreneurial ambitions, and get a nice, safe job at a big mega corp. I was reading the Wall Street Journal, and the Wall Street Journal is very big on, "All the programming jobs are going to India and China, and there will be none left in America."
Justin Jacksonno31:57EP04: MVP apps with WordPress (Part 2)http://productpeople.tv/2012/12/12/mvp-wordpress-part2/
http://productpeople.tv/2012/12/12/mvp-wordpress-part2/#commentsWed, 12 Dec 2012 05:00:51 +0000http://productpeople.tv/?p=31

WordPress was first for pure blogging, then became embraced as a CMS (though some people still deny this), is seeing growth and innovation in being used as an application platform (I think we’re about a third of the way through that), and just now starting to embrace social and mobile — the fourth phase of our evolution.

Are you a developer who wants to cut down the amount of time it takes to build a prototype? Are you a product person who can’t code? Do you have a product idea that you want to validate quickly?

This is Part 2 of our interview with Daelan Wood on building an MVP using WordPress.

Daelan is a talented web developer from Edmonton who runs his own company called NorthRepublic. You can follow him on Twitter here: @daelan.

]]>http://productpeople.tv/2012/12/12/mvp-wordpress-part2/feed/7wordpressappWordPress was first for pure blogging, then became embraced as a CMS (though some people still deny this), is seeing growth and innovation in being used as an application platform (I think we’re about a third of the way through that),WordPress was first for pure blogging, then became embraced as a CMS (though some people still deny this), is seeing growth and innovation in being used as an application platform (I think we’re about a third of the way through that), and just now starting to embrace social and mobile — the fourth phase of our evolution.
- Matt Mullenweg
Are you a developer who wants to cut down the amount of time it takes to build a prototype? Are you a product person who can't code? Do you have a product idea that you want to validate quickly?
This is Part 2 of our interview with Daelan Wood on building an MVP using Wordpress.
Daelan is a talented web developer from Edmonton who runs his own company called NorthRepublic. You can follow him on Twitter here: @daelan.Justin Jacksonno35:26Episode 3: Building MVP apps with WordPress (Part 1)http://productpeople.tv/2012/12/05/episode-3-building-mvp-apps-with-wordpress-part-1/
http://productpeople.tv/2012/12/05/episode-3-building-mvp-apps-with-wordpress-part-1/#commentsWed, 05 Dec 2012 21:10:15 +0000http://productpeople.tv/?p=28Are you a developer who wants to cut down the amount of time it takes to build a prototype? Are you a product person who can’t code? Do you have a product idea that you want to validate quickly?

If any of those describe you, you’re going to love this 2-part interview we had with Daelan Wood on building an MVP using WordPress.

Daelan is a talented web developer from Edmonton who runs his own company called NorthRepublic. You can follow him on Twitter here: @daelan.

]]>http://productpeople.tv/2012/12/05/episode-3-building-mvp-apps-with-wordpress-part-1/feed/5audio,episode3,podcast,wordpressappAre you a developer who wants to cut down the amount of time it takes to build a prototype? Are you a product person who can't code? Do you have a product idea that you want to validate quickly? - If any of those describe you,Are you a developer who wants to cut down the amount of time it takes to build a prototype? Are you a product person who can't code? Do you have a product idea that you want to validate quickly?
If any of those describe you, you're going to love this 2-part interview we had with Daelan Wood on building an MVP using Wordpress.
Daelan is a talented web developer from Edmonton who runs his own company called NorthRepublic. You can follow him on Twitter here: @daelan.
Update: listen to part 2 here >>Justin Jacksonno34:40Episode 2: Who should you build products with?http://productpeople.tv/2012/11/17/episode-2-who-should-you-build-products-with/
http://productpeople.tv/2012/11/17/episode-2-who-should-you-build-products-with/#commentsSat, 17 Nov 2012 03:25:45 +0000http://productpeople.strongcaster.com/?p=22In this week’s call Kyle and Justin talk about people: specifically, the people you choose to build a product with.

How do you choose an existing product? (If you’re working for another company)

Kyle: Wow, that sounds so sexy and fun to work on.
[INTRO MUSIC]
Justin: I set us both to “male voice.” I hope that’s okay.
Kyle: Yeah, I appreciate you assuming the correct gender.
[laughter]
Justin: All right, welcome to Product People, a podcast for people who build beautiful products. My name is Justin and I’m calling from Vernon, BC.
Kyle: And I’m Kyle and I’m calling from Edmonton.
Justin: And Kyle, I thought for this week’s call, I had an idea that we could talk about people, and specifically, the people we choose to build products with, and I thought there was like two angles on this. One is, if you’re starting a new company or building a new product on your own, you have to choose a co-founder and two, if you decide to join an existing team, as may be a product lead or product manager, you have to decide who you’re going to team up with, which company you’re going to join and we might also even talk about how you break into that. How do you break into Product Management, Product Lead, that kind of thing? What do you think?
Kyle: Uh, sounds good, yeah. Let’s do it.
Justin: All right, well I thought to start, maybe we could talk about—get a little bit personal and talk about how this whole podcast even came into being. Do you want to just tell people the story about like, how did this happen? How did this podcast happen?
Kyle: Right. Well, you and I don’t have much history together, which may be a surprise to anyone who’s listening.
Justin: That’s true.
Kyle: We—how long ago would you say it was that we finally met in person? Maybe a month ago?
Justin: Yeah, a month ago, I think.
Kyle: A month ago? So, Justin and I, for probably the last couple of years, have followed each other on Twitter, both lived and worked in Edmonton at software, internet software companies and so, the circle in Edmonton is pretty small and, found each other through Twitter and bantered on Twitter a lot and I think we even—we sort of planned a few, “Hey, let’s meet for beers,” and—
Justin: That’s right.
Kyle: and they ended up never panning out.
Justin: That’s right, yeah, we missed each other a couple times.
Kyle: For some reason or another, one of us would cancel. [laughs]
Justin: Yeah, I would be thinking about going to an event and I’d decide not to and it’d turn out, you would show up. We were just missing each other every time.
Kyle: Yes, exactly, for two years, and then it wasn’t until you moved to another province—
Justin: [laughs]
Kyle: we were actually able to coordinate an in-person meeting. [laughs]
Justin: That’s right.
Kyle: So yeah, you came back to Edmonton for a short little business trip and we met with some other friends for beer and started chatting about prodcuts and kind of realized that we had a lot of the same, I guess, outlook and vision for how products should get made, what kinds of things are important, the sorts of aspects of product development that get us excited and—
Justin: Yeah, I think we both admitted to tiny little business crush on Amy Hoy.
Kyle: Yeah, exactly.
Justin: [laughs]
Kyle: Yes.
Justin: And so we—
Kyle: And probably many others as well.
Justin: Yeah, yeah. And so we chatted, hung out, it was a great, great chat, focused a lot on products and then I think it was maybe a couple days later, you messaged me on Twitter and said, “Hey, have you ever thought about doing a podcast?”
Kyle: Yeah, um, it was kind of always something I wanted to do myself. I just never got around to it, I suppose, and just chatting with you over beer was fairly conversational and easy and we talked about a lot of interesting things. I sure found it interesting. Whether a third party listening in finds it interesting, I guess that remains to be seen.
Justin: [laughs]
Kyle: But at the very least, I enjoy our chats about products and software and all that fun stuff. So it seemed like a good opportunity to maybe give this podcasting thing a try. I was pretty sure that I had seen you tweet in the past that podcasting was something you wanted to give a try to and I know you’re fairly active on your blog and things like that, so, I thought, “Why not? I’ll see if he’s interested and see if we can make it happen.”
Justin: Yeah. And I’m wondering what we could pull out of that whole experience because, essentially, you and I have co-founded a product. This is a podcast, but it actually has a—the development of a podcast is, in a lot of ways, like developing a product and you and I are treating it even more so in that we’re trying to kind of do a lean approach to podcast development and we’re going out and we’re doing customer development and we have a survey and we’ve been talking to people and asking them questions and all of that. But we’ve co-founded this product. What do you think are some things that we could pull out of that, that maybe would apply to other folks as they’re looking to start a product and looking for someone to co-found it with?
Kyle: Yeah, I think there’s a lot of parallels any time you want to undertake any kind of creative endeavor with somebody else. So I think one of the most important things is to not really be afraid to approach people with ideas and opportunities to collaborate on things.
Justin: Mm hmm.
Kyle: I’m not sure if it was last time we chatted but—or if we had recorded it but we had sort of talked about how, because of things like Twitter and blogging, people are just—they seem more approachable and even like your web design idols or your development idols—
Justin: Mm hmm.
Kyle: sort of seem like they’re maybe on this other plane or whatever, you really look up to them, but in a lot of ways, they’re just regular people too and the reason that they’re so prominent in those fields is because they’re passionate about that particular topics. So, chances are, if you’re interested in that topic as well, and you toss out an idea, there’s nothing really to lose by tossing out an idea, right? Like, I didn’t know if you wanted to do a podcast or not but hey, I’ll at least mention it and see what happens because there’s no harm in asking, basically, so—
Justin: Yeah. I think it’s okay to—even to approach people that you don’t really know or have a good relationship with.
Kyle: Yeah, definitely. It’s kind of like you can just approach people just to hang out and you don’t really have to have in mind that, “Oh, me and this other person, I really admire their work. I want to build a product with them.” That’s kind of like love at first sight and wanting to get married immediately before you get to know somebody.
Justin: Yeah.
Kyle: So just getting to know somebody and kind of going with it and if it turns out that you have good chemistry, which is another important part of any sort of business or creative relationship, if there’s chemistry there and there’s a shared sort of—there’s shared values and shared vision, then the opportunity to make a product together will kind of naturally bubble out of that relationship because you will naturally be tossing out ideas for different things that you’ve wanted to build or different things you like and naturally, I think, if there’s chemistry there, it’s going to come around to, “Well, what can we do together?”
Justin: Mm hmm. Yeah, and you know, your story—sorry, our story, kind of reminded me, in high school, I had this idea—this is going to sound funny, but I had this idea I wanted to put on a rave in my hometown—
Kyle: [laughs]
Justin: and I just remember feeling like I was into the rave scene and I remember wanting to bring this big city event to my little town of like 3000 people and to do that, I had to find someone who could do that with me and I ended up going to this guy Adrian that I didn’t know that well and just pitching him on it but I knew he was into raves and DJing and I thought he would be a good partner. And I think sometimes it’s okay to kind of, as you get to know people, and as you’re involved in a certain scene, to approach people and say, “Hey, are you interested in this?” or maybe you just get that sense, because as soon as I pitched him on it, he was like, he was in. And we ended up having a really good business partnership for this Grade 12 rave that we put on. But sometimes you don’t even need to know the person really well. You can just kind of see who’s out there, see who else might be into something similar and I think really, the big lesson is, just get started. Like, get together with them, pitch them on the idea and then say, “Well, what would be the next step?” and for you and I the next step was just a phone call.
Kyle: Yeah, exactly. I think that’s an important point too is that you don’t need to have—like you don’t need to know somebody really well to determine that you have kind of chemistry and potential to build something. Again, it kind of comes back to romantic relationships, like there are many couples who date for three weeks and then decide they’re going to get married because it just—it clicks so well and in a lot of cases, that’s how good products are made too. Like you just—people’s vision just aligns so well that—and you’re both on board, like you said with your friend Adrian and the rave. It’s just a no-brainer, basically, to like, “Yeah, let’s do this. It’s something I want to do and—“ it’s kind of—this summer, me and my friend Jeff Archibald from Paper Leaf, we went to Interlink, that’s a web design—or web conference in Vancouver and they kind of talked about how—one of the speakers, Jessica Hische, talked about how she went to, I believe it was Type Camp or Type Cooper—
Justin: Okay.
Kyle: and basically, she spent however many days learning lettering and things like that and we were like, “Hey, that’s pretty cool. That’s something I’ve always wanted to do,” and so on the plane ride back home from Vancouver to Edmonton, we sort of were like, “Hey, would you—would it be crazy for us to try and do a typography or type design workshop?” and we were both instantly in to do it and—
Justin: Yeah.
Kyle: he and I had never really pursued any—like we hadn’t really worked together previously. Like, we were good friends and things like that but it was sort of like this out of the blue thing, like let’s do this and then over the course of a month, I guess it was two months, we planned and actually had this type workshop in Edmonton. But it was one of those things where you just throw out an idea and based on your relationship with the person, it’s like, “Yeah, I’m in. I know we can do this. We’ve got a lot of the same tastes, same level of quality that we would expect,” which is a huge thing. Any time you’re working with somebody and there’s difference in the level of quality that you’re okay with, that can cause a lot of friction and problems—
Justin: Mm hmm.
Kyle: so if you know that somebody that you’re thinking of working with has kind of the same expectations of quality and the same vision then it’s yeah, it’s like a no-brainer. It’s one of those things where you’re super excited to actually pursue something with that person because you know it’s going to end up awesome.
Justin: That’s right, yeah. That inspiration is important. The inspiration, I think Jason Fried says, “Inspiration is perishable,” and sometimes you are in those moments where you might have just met someone at a conference or met up with someone for a beer or something and you have that moment of inspiration. I’ve found you really need to jump on those. If you’re in and you’re saying, “Hell yeah,” you need to jump on those, whatever it is, and just go for it and a lot of times it won’t work out and that’s fine. But if you’re kind of thinking about doing something, especially building your own product and you happen to meet someone who has the same taste and same sense of quality and same, maybe even shares a vision with you, it makes sense to just get going and take one step at a time and maybe think about details later.
Kyle: Yeah, definitely. That’s—the biggest hurdle, well one of the biggest hurdles, is just making the decision to get started and actually do it. It’s one thing to toss out ideas and say, “Oh, someday we should do this,” or you know—
Justin: yeah.
Kyle: “someday,” but actually taking that first step and actually diving into like, “We’re actually going to do this. What’s the first thing we’re going to do tomorrow to actually get this started?” You kind of have to seize the moment when you’ve got that inspiration. Yeah, like you said, take advantage of it and take advantage of the fact that there’s a person there who wants to—like has the same sort of vision. [laughs]
Justin: Yeah. I think the only thing I would add is that for me, I’ve always tried to do things on my own and I’m starting to learn the benefit of teaming up with someone else and working with someone else.
Kyle: Mm hmm.
Justin: And I just think that there’s a lot of maybe entrepreneurial people or maybe a really great designer or a really great developer and you’re just used to doing good work by yourself and the idea that—of teaming up with someone might seem like it would slow you down or that would be a lot of extra work. And I’m just realizing more and more that to build great products, you need a team. Definitely to start a company, you need a team. Even to start a good podcast, it makes a lot more sense to have two people talking instead of me just talking to a microphone by myself.
Kyle: [laughs]
Justin: And so I’ve been thinking about that a lot, about the idea of teaming up with someone else and doing something together, as opposed to just trying to do it yourself.
Kyle: Yeah. There’s totally a buzzword for that the whole “synergy” thing where two people working on it, they’re more than the sum of their parts so you’re not just—if you have two people working on an idea, you’re not—you don’t have double the productivity. It’s probably more than double just because you kind of push each other to work a little harder than you would if you were each working individually.
Justin: Yeah.
Kyle: And there’s also the whole thing of complimentary skills, which is definitely important. Like if you’re looking for somebody to start a new venture with, whether that’s a business or a podcast or whatever, it can be tempting to yeah, want to do it yourself, especially like, I’ve found that a lot of entrepreneurs, like myself included, are a bit of—control freaks—[laughs]
Justin: Mm hmm!
Kyle: and I think that’s partly what drives the entrepreneurial spirit but it’s definitely kind of in your best interest to give up the reigns a bit and realize that you can’t do everything. You can’t be the best at everything.
Justin: Mm hmm.
Kyle: And so, maybe it’s better for you to, rather than trying to be the technical guy, the business guy, the designer guy and the marketing guy, maybe just focus on the two things that you’re really passionate about and find someone else who sort of fits those other areas and then—because not only is it less things for you to try to juggle in your head at once but there’s that whole idea where you’re getting fresh ideas that you wouldn’t have if you were just by yourself. It’s like a—I forget what the term is for that, but basically, you’re getting external input into your own head rather than just relying on your brain to churn our your own ideas.
Justin: Yeah. Yeah, I found that really helpful and I’m still—I feel like I’m a beginner in that sense of teaming up with folks and not always thinking I just have to do this by myself.
Kyle: Yeah.
Justin: But actually working with other people.
Kyle: And it’s hard, like again, with the control freak thing, I think entrepreneurials—or entrepreneurs—[laughs]
Justin: I like that word. Entrepreneurials.
Kyle: Entrepreneurials. [laughs]
Justin: [laughs]
Kyle: It gets even better when you try to say “serial entrepreneurials.”
Justin: [laughs}
Kyle: They, again, by definition, have a vision for how things should be and that whole idea of giving up a little bit of control and trusting someone else to follow through with what might not be exactly your vision but it’ll still be good, it’s a tough thing to do.
Justin: Mm hmm.
Kyle: Even entrepreneurs who try and go it alone and as their company grows and even if they hire people and aren’t really seeking a co-founder, I know that giving up control and delegating tasks, even to employees, can be difficult because you’re just so used to having that vision in your head and entrusting that vision to other people can be hard.
Justin: Mm hmm.
Kyle: And it’s even harder when it’s at the co-founder stage, things are super early and there’s a lot of room for error, basically.
Justin: Yeah.
Kyle: So basically, learning to give up some of that control to somebody else you trust is super important if you want to accomplish bigger things.
Justin: Yeah. Well, and this is a good segue into the other side of the coin, which is joining another team, working for somebody else. And you just switched from freelancing to employment, right?
Kyle: It’s true, I did.
Justin: Okay, so tell people, which team did you join?
Kyle: So I joined a company called Granify and I joined them as a Product—I think my title is Product and Design Lead.
Justin: Okay.
Kyle: So, yeah.
Justin: And what does Granify do?
Kyle: It sounds complicated but they use machine learning and artificial intelligence and big data to help e-commerce stores earn significantly more money, is basically what it boils down to.
Justin: Interesting. Well said. You have that line down.
Kyle: Yeah, we’ve been kind of refining the pitch because we’ve sort of been explaining—we’ve gotten a lot of confused looks when we try and explain it and really, that’s the way to boil it down into—I wouldn’t even say that’s in layman’s terms because I said, “artificial intelligence, machine learning and big data.”
Justin: [laughs] Yeah. Okay, so thinking about this question, I think there’s two things. One, how do you decide which company, which team to join and then maybe we could also talk about at the end, for people looking to break in to Product Management or some sort of product role, how do they do that? How do they get there?
Kyle: Right.
Justin: So for you joining Granify, what was it that made you want to join that team?
Kyle: First of all, I wasn’t actually seeking a job. Once I started diving into freelance—the whole reason I dove into freelance was to kind of bootstrap a product I had building on the side called FotoJournal.
Justin: Mm hmm.
Kyle: That was kind of my plan. I was going to freelance enough to pay the bills while I continued to build and grow FotoJournal.
Justin: Yeah.
Kyle: But it gets to the point, what I was getting to earlier, you kind of realize the limitations of one person. Like, I could grow FotoJournal to a point but then after that, there’s only so big I can make it as one person. And it’s also working from home by yourself, it’s got its perks, but it’s also not as, maybe, inspiring in the same way that working with a team does. So one of my freelance clients—Granify was one of my freelance clients and the CEO, who has had some previous success with building and selling companies, he’s got a lot of vision and so basically, it was the CEO’s amount of passion and vision that really got me on board to come on and do bigger things than I could have on my own. So it was a—it’s kind of a new area, I guess, for me. Like, e-commerce isn’t something I’ve really worked in before, but he’s like, “Oh, no, don’t worry about it. You’ll figure it all out. What I want you to do is—“ it was more like—it’s a Product Manager type of role so I mean, in some ways, it doesn’t really matter specifically what product it is. He’s just like—he was more interested in my past history of helping products get out the door and look good.
Justin: Mm hmm.
Kyle: So basically, yeah, his vision and passion were contagious and I was just—it was again, getting back to the chemistry thing. He and I got along really well, we’ve gone for beer and coffee a bunch and it always turns into four-hour sessions, so just like really easy to talk to, we get along great, we’ve got that complimentary skill set we talked about earlier.
Justin: Yeah.
Kyle: It just was like a great fit.
Justin: You know I think for me, that’s key. You can check out a company and kind of get a sense of who they are but I think if you’re looking to join a company, it’s hanging out with the leader of that company, or if there’s leaders, but hanging out with them and seeing, what do they value? What’s their vision for this company? And just seeing if it gets you excited, and if it does, to me, that’s what I would pursue. If I hang out with a leader that excites me, then that’s who I’m going to want to follow. It was the same thing for me at Industry Mailout. The reason I wanted to join that team was because the leadership there were—they had values that I shared and they had a vision for a product that I could really buy into. So I think that would be definitely one thing is if you’re thinking about joining a team is to finding a team that—where the vision excites you and you agree with the core values.
Kyle: Definitely, and I would say that probably—well, for me anyway, that’s even more important than the specific industry that the company might be in. Like I said, e-commerce, I don’t really have any experience in e-commerce but the fact that I was so excited by hearing Jeff talk about the direction of the company, I thought to myself, we’re going to build something awesome. No matter what we attempted to build, it was going to be awesome just because of the level of enthusiasm that everyone has. And it was the same as like, at a previous company I worked for, Yardstick Software, that does—they do online exam software which, you know, when you hear it, you don’t immediately think, “Wow, that sounds so sexy and fun to work on.”
Justin: Yeah. Yeah.
Kyle: People who just love making stuff, they love working with customers, they love launching, they love watching revenue grow, they love hiring good people, they love building a team and culture. That’s kind of more important than the particular type of widget you’re trying to manufacture, I think. To me, anyway.
Justin: Completely. I think if the vision is there, and there’s some core values that you agree with, I think you could be doing anything. You know, Zappos sells shoes, 37signals makes project management software, Amy Hoy has built time tracking software. None of those are really exciting in and of themselves but I think each of those companies is exciting and has a really interesting culture and really interesting vision and have built incredible products. So yeah, to me, I don’t think that the actual thing that you’re producing is as important, although it’s really fun when that happens too, when the product that you’re building is also something you’re really excited about, but it’s not necessary.
Kyle: Yeah, definitely. If you can have both, it’s like a home run type situation but it’s also, if you have that team, it’s easy to suddenly start thinking, maybe it’s like that whole Stockholm Syndrome thing but like, [inaudible] worked at Yardstick making exam software, at first it didn’t really matter to me what we were building because I was just having fun building stuff with the team. But as we went further along, I started to really care about online exams and really want to make that an awesome experience, like the best possible online exam product we could make. And it’s the same thing with Granify. The more I work with this awesome team to build e-commerce software, the more excited I get about the space we’re in as well. So it kind of has a ripple effect on your interests, I suppose.
Justin: Yeah, I think that’s the culture speaking, when you get excited about the product even though you weren’t originally excited. I think that’s a result of culture and when I went and visited the Zappos headquarters, you walk in those buildings and you feel like a million bucks. People treat each other so well there and really, their product is customer service. It’s essentially a call center and you think about these people getting excited about working in a call center. It’s unreal. But they were so excited to be at work and it was seriously one of the most positive places I’ve ever been.
Kyle: A lot of people, probably, who are listening to this are kind of builders at heart where they love to build things they care about and that’s—it can be hard to maybe fathom how people can get excited about things that maybe don’t seem that exciting but when you get in a room with people who are excited about it and you see the potential of—you can see the end of goal of where you’re going then, even though you’re a developer, you don’t mind answering the phone to talk to customers to fix bugs because you’re not just there to sit down and crank through code for ten hours a day. You’re there to help achieve something bigger and that’s where people—it just results in so many things where people are doing more than what they were—maybe their job description says but they’re doing it because they want to. And those are the kinds of companies that, if you’re interested in building good products, those are the places you want to work where everyone is excited to build the best possible thing, regardless of what their job description says.
Justin: If I was going to give some advice on getting into Product Management or a Product Lead role, it would be to find a great company and then try to just start at the bottom and work your way up.
Kyle: Yeah, totally. I totally agree. That’s kind of what we talked about at the start, which is don’t be afraid to approach these people that you really look up to but maybe have never met before. So if there’s a company in town that you really admire their work and their company, or you know somebody who works there and just loves it, send the CEO or somebody and email and just ask if you can take them to lunch or to coffee or for beer or something like that and you’ll probably find that more often than not, they’ll be really excited to talk to somebody who’s looking to break into that field. Because all of those people love—like we all love talking about business and products and software and customers and that sort of thing, so there’s a good chance they’ll want to talk to you.
Justin: I seriously, I probably contact, I don’t know, probably three people a week asking if I can meet up with them and I might get one out of the three.
Kyle: Yeah.
Justin: But it’s the act of doing that that produces the results of actually meeting up with someone.
Kyle: Yeah, exactly. You might only get one lunch out of three emails but you’ll get zero lunches out of zero emails so [laughs] why not send something?
Justin: Yeah. Do you have anything else you want to say that’s on the top of your mind right now?
Kyle: Well, one other thing, quickly, that I was just thinking of mentioning is if you’re looking to break into this kind of a field, I sort of talked about how you want to work at a people maybe step outside of what their job description is and are willing to fill in the gaps wherever necessary, whether that’s answering the phone or doing customer support or helping with some design or writing code. I think those are the kinds of peoples who, if you have a breadth of skill, I think those are the kinds of people who go on to be probably excellent Product Managers, when you’ve got the background in a bit of everything.
Justin: Yeah.
Kyle: So it’s—I think one piece of advice would be to dip your toes into all those different waters, learn a little bit of code. You’ve dabbled in code a bit, you’ve done some UX stuff, you’ve done some marketing in business and all of that sort of thing and you don’t really have to try to be the best in each one of those niches but if you’ve got a breadth of understanding, it just helps you talk between all those teams so much better. Because that’s really what a Product Manager is, right? You’re kind of like the hub between all these different production teams. So the more you know about what they’re actually doing, the more effective you can be as a Product Manager.
Justin: Yeah, I couldn’t agree more. And for me right now, my weakest point is definitely coding and so I’ve been actively working on that. I’ve done some coding workshops, I’m doing some online education, I’ll probably take a few courses, and the point isn’t for me to become an expert developer, but the point is I want to be able to communicate with developers. I want to also understand at least the technology that we’re using or that we could use and I might not need to know how I could build it from the ground up but it’s good to know what pieces are available and how we might use them.
Kyle: Exactly. I’ve got a good friend who’s starting a new healthcare stsrt-up and he’s hired a team of Django developers. Django is kind of like a Python version of Ruby-on-Rails, a web framework type thing, and he’s hired a Django team from the States to build a lot of the prototypes and it’s kind of turning out that the prototypes are becoming the actual product. He’s got no—absolutely zero background in development or anything like that but he’s—during the day he’s hustling, helping getting this product built and in the evenings, he’s hired another one of my friends in town who knows Django really well to tutor him and teach him coding in Django so that—like he has no intention to dive in and start contributing code but he’s just really motivated that the more he knows about what his developers are doing, what sorts of challenges they’ll hit, when they run in to a problem, he can understand what they’re saying and possibly talk to other developers to try and find a resolution. It’s a good thing to want to be well-rounded, so you don’t have to be, like you said, your intention isn’t to become an expert developer but the more you know, the better prepared you are to be that hub between all the teams.
Justin: Yeah, that’s really good advice, actually. If you’re looking to break into Product Management or being on a product team, then I think you definitely want to stick your nose in a bunch of different places. That’s how Ryan Singer from 37signals, he explained he got his Product Manager job because he kept sticking his nose in design and development and business and customers and eventually the said, “Well, you’re sticking your nose in all of these things. You might as well manage the product,” and I think if you’re going to be involved in managing a product, you need to stick your nose in a lot of different places.
Kyle: Definitely, so that’s a good example of somebody who’s at a company and succeeded doing that. And then you have Amy Hoy, who we talked about earlier who—she’s more of the entrepreneurial side where she’s sort of built her own products but it’s the exact same thing. She’s got a background in design and code and marketing and she’s kind of—she’s a pretty vocal person so she’s kind of got a following in all of those different audiences but again, same thing. Well-rounded, she’s got a good background in all those different things and as a result, she can—she might not be the one writing all the code or doing all the design or marketing, but because she’s got a breadth of experience, she knows what needs to get done and she can assess, if she’s delegating it out, she can assess who is capable of doing a good job, she can say whether their work is good or whether it’s not good.
So yeah, I think that’s kind of an interesting contrast between Amy Hoy who’s kind of a bootstrapped entrepreneur versus Ryan Singer who’s fallen into—or I shouldn’t say fallen into but grown into a Product Manager role with an existing company. In both cases, it’s that breadth of skills that got them there.
Justin: That’s right. And so, like I said, if you want to break into product, like Product Management, start with a great company and just do whatever it takes. So start in Customer Support or start in Design or start in Marketing. It doesn’t really matter. You just start somewhere and keep thinking and asking questions and learning and eventually, you can grow into a position where you might be managing a product.
Kyle: Yeah, exactly.
Justin: Yeah, that’s great advice. Cool, well that was a good talk.
Kyle: Agreed.
Justin: I think maybe we’ll just close off by just describing to people what stage we’re at. This is our second phone call and we’ve come up with this idea of building a minimal viable podcast. And so we’re following this lean, agile methodology to building this and what we want to do is talk to as many product people as we can, really listen to some of the challenges they’re facing both people trying to build their own products and people working for companies, and we want to cater our content around that. So each podcast we put out, we want to hear the feedback and then we want to refine the product. And so the next time we do a podcast, we want to take all that feedback into consideration. So if people are interested in giving us some feedback, you can follow us on Twitter, @productpeopletv or you can go to our website, productpeople.tv and there’s—you can comment on each phone call or episode that we put out and you can also @ reply us on Twitter.
Kyle: Yeah, and I think it’s good to mention that we’re pretty wide open at this point and open to suggestions, so if there’s specific topics you’d like to hear us cover or if there’s people that you think would be interesting for us to interview, or if maybe you think you yourself have an interesting story, all of those are good reasons to get in touch with us and tell you what you think would make for an interesting show.
Justin: Yeah, and we are really open to harsh criticism so if you’ve got some criticism too, just send it over, whether you don’t like the sound of my voice or it doesn’t really matter what it is. We’d love to hear what you’re thinking because we will take that feedback and we’ll put it into our Project Management software and we’ll actually try to refine what we’re doing the next time we record. Well, it’s been a good call, Kyle. I’m going to see you in a couple days in Edmonton and everyone else, yeah, check us out, productpeople.tv. Thanks for listening.
Kyle: Thanks.
[THEME MUSIC]
Justin: You need to stick your nose in a lot of different places.

]]>http://productpeople.tv/2012/11/17/episode-2-who-should-you-build-products-with/feed/1audio,episode2,people,teamIn this week’s call Kyle and Justin talk about people: specifically, the people you choose to build a product with. - Listen now - There are two ways to look at this, and we discuss both of them: How do you choose a co-founder?In this week’s call Kyle and Justin talk about people: specifically, the people you choose to build a product with.
Listen now
There are two ways to look at this, and we discuss both of them:
How do you choose a co-founder? (if you’re buildin...Justin Jacksonno40:42